


The One that Got Away

by AGirlwith17Words



Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before (Movies), To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series - Jenny Han
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Childhood Friends, Everyone Got Hotter, F/M, Forgiveness, Jealousy, Jet Lag, Meeting Old Friends After Losing Touch, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, School Reunion, Slow Burn, Weddings, people change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:07:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24665122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AGirlwith17Words/pseuds/AGirlwith17Words
Summary: It’s been 17 years since Lara Jean Covey started college life at UNC very green, very sad, and very Peter Kavinsky-less. And she’s glad to report that she’s finally all grown up now and has moved on... from everyone, just about.But then Chris invokes Bridesmaid Duties and demands that Lara Jean fly to Asia for Chris and Trevor's rather exotic wedding. And of course, Trevor invokes Best Man Duties of one Peter Grant Kavinsky.There is only one thing for a Song-Covey woman to do in a time like this: put her designer Big Girl Pants on and try not to make old mistakes, only new ones.
Relationships: Genevieve "Gen" & Peter Kavinsky, John Ambrose McClaren & Lara Jean Song-Covey, Peter Kavinsky/Lara Jean Song-Covey, Trevor Pike/Chris
Comments: 275
Kudos: 370





	1. This Hut Just Got Crowded, Fast

**Author's Note:**

> Based 17 years after the 3rd book of Jenny Han's TATBILB trilogy... with a few changes to her original ending.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/189595804@N06/50187058582/in/dateposted-public/)

The chalet before me is nothing like I’d imagined for myself. For starters, it's much too big. I had been expecting a rustic, cosy attap hut nestled in the mountainside where I could hide all by my lonesome before I absolutely have to play well with others. Instead, I'm now staring at a two-storey log château that's part hill-tribe tent, part luxury treehouse. 

With way too many bedroom balconies on the second floor for just one person. 

This is just one more thing to add to a long list of other surprising things about this trip. The weather is another one. Over six thousand feet above sea level, and who knew that the gelatinous muggy climate in Malaysia could turn crispy cool, even verging on chilly.

And then, of course, there was the matter of being invited at all. Now _that_ was the first and biggest surprise of the lot.

On hindsight I, Lara Jean Song-Covey, should have guessed what to expect from the size of this lodging. But then I’ve been quietly nervous for months, and now thoroughly jet-lagged to boot. So I'm not firing on all my usual cylinders when I turn the key in the lock and the suspiciously lightweight door swings open like a loose, wanton thing to reveal the small coterie inside.

There’s a mutual, stunned silence as I stare and everyone stares back. And then the room erupts into whoops and cheers.

“It’s LJ!” a familiar voice yells and then it’s Chris and she’s clambering over the cream white sofa in her red Converse shoes so I’m cringing for housekeeping’s sake. “She made it!” Chris shouts to the rest of the room as if they can’t see for themselves and then she mauls me, just about, so I stagger back. My leather travel tote hits the polished timber floor with a soft thud. Chris is just as she always was, except her hair is lavender, her skin is sun-kissed, and she laughs with a throaty smoker’s husk. There’s not a hint of green eyeshadow anywhere. If there were any wedding jitters at all, I'm hard-pressed to find them now in the cynical girl I grew up with. 

Stiffly, almost reluctantly, I allow her to drag-push me to the centre of the room and it’s like entering a time machine operating both ways at once. So many of them are all here, vaguely familiar faces that have aged so I can’t quite place the names anymore but then Chris gets to the couch and there’s no mistaking who’s who then.

Trevor Pike’s metabolism had finally given out and he's fleshier now than I’d ever remembered him. But his eyes still crinkle in the corners and they threaten to disappear the wider he smiles. "Thanks for coming,” he grins now, “Chris and I really appreciate it." 

“I’d never miss your wedding,” is my automatic reply and I find I mean it, too. And then it’s a strange little dance as we negotiate the kind of hug to end all that with, before settling for a lame side-squeeze. 

Gen is next and this time, it really is awkward as both of us stare a little at each other, neither of us smiling. And I don’t know how she does it but I feel myself sinking back into Adler High a little as my tongue thickens and clever words stick to the roof of my mouth. 

“You look different,” Gen finally pronounces and she’s not wrong. It’s been a long time since I've swanned out of the house fashioned in pastel and Korean kitsch. I'm only half sure if my pink satin bomber jacket is still in my parents’ attic in Virginia, and there isn’t plaid or print in sight now. Mentally, I rolodex the wardrobe I'd carefully curated in the tote-matching suitcase by the door. New York has definitely changed me. 

Gen herself has changed. Her blonde hair is darker now and worn straight and down her back, much like how I used to wear my own except my jet-black sheet of hair hadn’t been by choice so much as what mom’s genetics had dealt me. Genevieve is still striking at a glance, her stance confident and challenging as ever. It’s like she’s constantly posing for a camera only she can see. That mouth, once so capable of snark that could shred my soul, still pouts beautifully even as her sharp face has softened and rounded. But it’s her eyes that I wonder about most of all. Something about them has morphed over time and it isn't the shade of meow green. 

And then—

“John Ambrose!” I gasp in horror when I see him and then try desperately to grin like a small sun to cover over my consternation. There is just enough time to shoot a pointed look at a very unrepentant Chris and Trevor before John Ambrose walks over and envelopes me in a short hug. He’s smaller than I ever remember him being and still smells vaguely like baby powder and honey. A sudden flood of memories hits me like a truck. 

“How…” my befuddlement tumbles out. “Who…”

Trevor shrugs. “We’ve been hanging out since college.”

“All of you?”

Trevor looks around the room. “Pretty much.” He counts each of them off. “Yup… we’re all still in Virginia, more or less. And after some of us started having kids, we kinda moved back to the neighbourhood actually. Not that far from your dad’s.”

“No one’s really left… except you, of course. Miss Hotshot New York Editor,” John Ambrose teases gently. “Wearing all black now and living the glamorous high life!” Heat rushes up my neck a little and I steal a glance at my present attire, right down to my sturdiest black court heels. Guilty. 

“It’s still early days,” I mumble half-heartedly. “And it’s not that glamorous. My flight leaves on Sunday.”

“What?!”

“I’m so sorry,” I apologise, infusing my voice with an earnest regret I don’t quite feel. “We’re about to launch a special edition on the elections, and everything’s gone to poo. I even brought work with me.” I gesture vaguely at my travel tote which has my laptop in it. 

“But you just got here!” Chris is properly appalled. “It’s only Thursday! It takes so damn long to even get out here, and you’re barely staying a week?” 

“Aww leave her alone, Chrissy.” Trevor kisses his fiancée's temple and bear-hugs her from behind. “LJ's here anyway, isn’t she? She could’ve saved herself the short round trip but she came all this way and just for us. And anyway, at least we know she'll make it for the rehearsal tomorrow. I don’t even know if my best man is gonna make it at this rate."

My stomach drops as a thought hits me. 

“Your... best man?”

“I was hoping you guys would be on the same flight at least. He told me last week he was leaving from New York...”

“Who…” A small crease forms between my brows as wisps of the truth start to coalesce into something sensible and terrible. Like a giant spider’s web. 

I am a different person now, I remind myself. College was an age ago. I can pull myself together at will. 

“Who's your best man?”

“Mr Hotshot Corporate Attorney himself, of course,” Gen volunteers finally, her eyes greener than ever. “Peter Kavinsky."


	2. All Who Wander Are Probably Tourists

“I honestly don’t know why you’re upset,” Chris quips as she flops on my bed while I close my door. “The way you’re carrying on… it’s not a big deal.”

“I’m not carrying on, and I’m not upset” I reply coolly. There’s a remarkably effective I’m-being-reasonable voice I’ve learnt to employ when I face down intimidating people in my line of work, and I’m dialling that up silently to a seven. There’s a bag rack in the room and I hoist my suitcase on it, conveniently turning my back to the bed and the hyper-observant Chris as I continue airily, “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I haven’t heard that name in years. Didn’t even know you and Trevor were still in contact with him.”

“Yeah… well…” There’s a strange silence after that. When I turn back to face Chris, she’s looking distinctly uncomfortable. Even guilty.

“What.”

“Promise you won’t get angry?”

“What,” I press, getting suspicious.

“Trev and Peter never stopped being friends. And… well… when Trev and I got together again all those years later, it was only natural that Peter and I hung out again too. Please don’t get mad at me,” she's pleading now, getting up on her knees to crawl over to me on my bed. She’s still wearing her sneakers. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask after a beat. I can’t work out why I’m feeling even more upset and then I get it. It’s the subterfuge.

“I just didn’t want to bring up his name again, not with you. It just felt like the right thing to do.”

“It was college,” I reply and it sounds cross when it comes out. “Peter and I broke up, what, seventeen years ago? It’s ancient history. I could've handled it."

“It wasn’t just you we were thinking about, Lara Jean,” Chris hesitates and then the next words come out in a rush. “It was Peter as well. He made us promise not to talk about you or mention him to you anymore.”

I just stare. 

“Aw come on, Lara Jean!” Chris cries, getting off the bed now. “It was such a bad break up! Epic! Adler High alumni talked about it for months. The poor man was in shambles. You really broke his heart.”

“Not helping, Chris!” I grit back, my I’m-Being-Reasonable gone for good. I hate being the villain. I’m never the villain. 

Who am I kidding. When it came to Peter and me, I became the villain. For both of our sakes.

“I know your reasons, of course I know your reasons,” Chris’s husk is low and soothing now. "And look, after a while — and it took a long while, but he got there — Peter moved on and you moved on. And when he started dating again, I guess he learnt from your break-up and went super low-key so hardly anyone heard from him. And you’ve always been low-profile and then you moved to New York. And then _he_ moved to New York—”

“Wait,” I interrupt, the pieces suddenly falling into place. “Wait… Trevor said just now that Peter was catching his flight from… You’re saying Peter _lives_ in New York?”

“Yes.” There’s no mistaking the guilty look on Chris’s face now. She can barely look me in the eyes. “He’s been there a while.”

“How long!” 

“About seven years?”

“CHRIS!” 

“Why do you even care!” Chris shoots back, her chin tilted up in challenge. “Hardly anyone from Adler has heard from you. You run with a completely different crowd now. The rest of us… we’ve kept close to home. John Ambrose and Gen and Emily and the rest know more about you than you know about them — and that’s partly because you’re half famous with Adler alumni now. But you don’t ask after us!” It’s definitely an accusation and she’s right, of course. After graduating UNC, I got that postgraduate scholarship to Columbia and moved to New York and tried not to look back too much, if at all.

“I just didn’t know we’ve been in the same state all this time, that’s all…” I sound small now, the weariness of travel and excitement and apprehension and guilt finally taking all the puff out of me. I glance at the clock — it’s pitch-black outside at eight in the evening here, which means it’s eight in the morning New York time and I haven’t slept for more than five hours in... _thirty-nine hours_. 

“You should sleep,” Chris announces and I don’t know how she does it, that uncanny way of reading my mind — sometimes before I even get there myself. She drags me over to the bed and tucks me in like I’m a child, brushing my hair away from my eyes to the side and tucking it behind my ear. And I’m strangely touched.

“I’m gonna go,” she smiles down at me. "Just… get a good sleep and enjoy the rest of the weekend, okay? Because look…” She sits on the bed beside me and wriggles her fingers in front of my face. The bedside night light glints off her solitaire diamond prettily. “I’m getting married, and I’m so glad you’re here finally and you’ve always been my friend and you’re one of my bridesmaids, okay?”

“Okay,” I whisper back and she grabs my pinky with her own like we’re kids. And it’s probably the jet lag but there’s a small lump forming in my throat even as the room goes dark when she turns off my lamp, pulls the delicate mosquito netting over me, and closes the door behind her. 

* * *

It’s still dark outside when I wake up with a jolt and it takes me a full half-minute to get my bearings again. I’d fallen asleep without charging my cell and it’s completely dead now as I rummage in my suitcase for a charger before finally remembering it's useless anyway without an international adaptor. Which, of course, I’d forgotten to bring. 

The clock by my bedside claims it’s almost three in the morning at Awana Highlands, so it’s almost three on Thursday afternoon in New York. And even though my body could easily do with another four hours of sleep, just knowing it’s the middle of the afternoon in New York and I hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch yet — or dinner or supper in Malaysian time — is enough to bring on an obnoxious tummy rumble on cue.

I don’t even know if they’d do room service for our chalet at this crazy hour. The main reception of the treetop resort is towards the top of the mountain — a good five minutes’ ride by golf buggy or a twenty-minute winding trek uphill, maybe. The rest of their standalone chalets, pods and huts are embedded throughout the hillside at least fifty yards apart from each other, each with million-dollar views from their bedrooms. All four of ours are on the first storey of our cottage except for Chris and Trev’s, who have taken the master bedroom downstairs — a surprising set-up that I haven’t had time to quiz her about. Judging by what I can see from my bedroom, I suspect our chalet is the biggest by far and the priciest. It’s a gorgeous set-up… except for how Chris and Trev had grouped us all. In their infinite wisdom, they had grouped the young families in separate huts… and the remaining singles altogether in this one.

The rest are still sleeping and I try not to think of who’s sleeping in which room when I sneak downstairs and flick the lights on as quietly as possible. Thank God the pantry seems stocked with the basics and the oven seems to work. Almost delirious with hunger now but still holding out for something beyond just cold bread and butter, I deftly assemble an open cheese grill on toast and then wander outside with a mug of hot tea as the oven slowly heats up. 

It’s even darker out here away from the house, although the cool of the night is still tolerable with just my standard-issue hotel bathrobe wrapped tight over my silk pajamas. There’s a new shy moon tonight and not a single lamp illuminating the grounds, save for the one from our kitchen and the tiki torches flickering weakly from pods far away downhill to my left and right. I can’t get over how dark it is out here, how it seeps into everything so I can’t even see my own mug of tea when I get far away enough from the back patio. It’s so open out here — no fences, no gates, and the multitude of stars… I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen a sky so littered with stars like this. You don’t ever get skies like this in New Yor—

There’s barely a splash when I step into the pool but the shock is real and my mouth fills immediately with freezing cold water so I can’t scream. The bathrobe soaks up immediately and even when I feel the bottom, my foot slips and then I’m thrashing, the panic pouring into me as I realise a multitude of things at once. It’s three a.m. I’m single and alone and no one knows I’m out here. It’s freezing cold. I’m too young to die and too old to be found braless. I’m in a foreign country and I can’t remember the terms for medical repatriation on my travel insurance. All this for a cheese grill and I’m not even hungry anymore. 

And then just as suddenly, I feel myself pulled up to the surface, the pool-soaked terrycloth bathrobe still tied like a vice around my waist, the knot deadened by chlorinated water. Belatedly, I remember to stop thrashing and then I find myself more upright than not, the side of the pool reassuring as I hang on to it with one hand because the other is still stubbornly wrapped around my emptied mug of tea.

“Are you alright?” comes a voice in the dark and if I hadn’t wanted to scream before in the drink, I absolutely do so now.

Peter Kavinsky is kneeling beside the pool, his chiseled face a picture of concern as he squints in the dark. And maybe it’s because my eyes have finally adjusted that I see him so clearly even if he hasn’t quite figured out who I am. 

Until he does.

“Lara Jean?”

“Yes,” I manage to say, turning away immediately and fumbling around for a stair until I give up and set that stupid mug down over the ledge before pulling myself out with both hands free. It’s an effort — that terry towelling is really thirsty, and I’m only vaguely aware of how much I’m shaking until I feel something big and dry and wonderfully warm wrap around me and realise it’s Peter. He hustles me swiftly into the house, then abruptly leaves my side once we’re back in the kitchen and the door to the patio is closed. I’m still peeling my dripping bathrobe off when he returns with a big white fluffy towel from the bathroom downstairs. “It’s clean,” he assures me gruffly without asking, and then turns away self-consciously. When I look down and realise how sheer my white silk top is and how pointy my nipples have gotten, heat rushes up my neck. Oh.

“You'd better change out of your wet clothes,” he advises, still looking away from me and it’s all the prompting I need to flee his presence. But the oven is still on and the kitchen is still a mess, so I creep back downstairs eventually only to find the kitchen spotless, the oven turned off, and my grilled cheese toast still warm and nicely plated in the middle of the kitchen island just waiting for me. 

As for Peter, he’s gone. 


	3. Is That French Toast, or Are You Happy to See Me

I don’t sleep much after that, tossing and turning so much that I finally give up when I get hungry again. The rest of the house is still asleep at seven in the morning but I can’t resist when I dig around the kitchen and find a small bag of self-raising flour. 

Pancakes. Perfect.

It’s been ages since I last made a proper breakfast. I don’t even remember when, to be honest. I live alone on the seventh floor of a skyscraper with a doorman and a gym; there’s no one to finish off a batch of pancakes once I’m through making them as I usually only have appetite left — after all the smells — for exactly one. I hate the taste of leftovers anyway, always have. You don’t get leftovers that last for days when you have family, and I’d rather do without that daily reminder of my busy, solitary life. 

So while my pancake mix is resting, I start to go large. The chalet, it turns out, is entitled to a breakfast basket every morning and after calling up for ours, someone from the hotel comes around real soon and drops one off early along with an adapter for my phone charger. There are sausages and bacon, mushrooms and potatoes and eggs and muffins and milk and OJ. I’m still peeling the spuds to make röstis when I think I hear someone come down the winding timber cantilever stairs but I drop the peeler anyway when Peter speaks up.

“Need help?” he asks, reaching down to pick it up and wash it at the sink. I shrug, suddenly wary and aware. My pajamas upstairs are still damp as is my bathrobe, and all I could find in my luggage this morning was a black turtleneck and a long pair of gray yoga pants that reach down to my ankles. It’s a little dressy for bedtime or breakfast, but then I hadn’t planned on staying long — or sharing a kitchen with housemates. He doesn’t seem to notice anyway. Or care. In fact he doesn’t look at me at all, our eyes carefully avoiding each other’s as he takes his place beside me at the kitchen island and I’m suddenly reminded how so very tall he is. He takes over the potato peeling without saying a word and so I get started on the sausages, praying to God I don’t set off any smoke alarms or burn the chalet down as I turn my back to him and start the stove.

It’s easier to steal glances at him this way. 

Even hunched over the potatoes, Peter Kavinsky’s shoulders seem broader now, his T-shirt stretched tight across his shoulders and chest before hanging loose to cover the V of his torso, the well-loved, threadbare cotton clearing by inches what I can only imagine to be an even toner version of the chiseled abdomen I once had nuzzling rights to. Once upon a time. 

He looks older — as do I, I’m sure. His dark hair is still a mop of curls this morning, yet somehow with a restraint that suggests years of deliberate direction. There’s some grays, just a little around the temples so he looks brainier somehow. Distinguished. And while John Ambrose and Trevor, even Gen and Chris had softened and widened a little with age, Peter had somehow grown… leaner. And harder.

He’s still the most handsome boy I’ve ever met in real life.

“You know we could have ordered in breakfast at the hotel, right?” Chris calls out from the doorway of her bedroom but when she sees Peter, she practically sprints to the kitchen and in a flash, she jumps into his arms and gives the most unChris-like squeal.

“You’re here! Oh my god, Trev is going to be so happy!”

“Kavinsky!” Trevor calls out from across the room as if on cue. “You made it!” 

“Just got in early this morning, like about three?” Peter grins. “Sorry I took so long. Connecting flight in London got delayed. Thought you got my message.”

“I didn't,” Trev replies, frowning slightly as he flicks through his phone. “What time did you send it?”

Peter shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he insists. “Phone’s been playing up lately. Turns itself off for no reason sometimes. Probably dropped it one too many times.”

“Want me to take a look?” John Ambrose offers now, popping out of seemingly nowhere. I watch as the two high-school boys I once kissed consecutively within a three-minute span smile at each other and shake hands for a bit before leaning in for a quick bro-hug. 

“Nah man,” Peter eventually answers, “don’t worry about it.”

“I do work for a telco, you know.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Peter insists, and then he glances at me quickly before adding, “it’s dead now anyway. I… dropped it in the bath this morning and it drowned. Didn’t notice till it was too late. It’s fucked.”

Immediately, everyone chimes in a chorus of condolences and teasing except me. Because now I have a sinking suspicion it all has to do with _my_ near-drowning earlier this morning. And the more he avoids my gaze, the more I’m sure of it.

“Three A.M., huh.” Chris is looking thoughtful now. “Trev and I thought we heard an intruder last night. Was that you, Kavinsky?”

“Probably.”

“Except we thought it came from the back, where the pool is. Trev actually woke up — didn’t you, honey. Thought you heard a small commotion. Was that you coming in?”

Sheepishly, I start to raise my hand but before I can get it past the kitchen island, I feel Peter gently push it down again.

“Yeah, probably. My car was parked towards the back of the house and I was trying my key on the patio door but it didn’t work.” He shrugs and smiles helplessly. “Had to come around to the front instead.”

“Who left a mug out by our pool, by the way?” John Ambrose frowns as he squints at the glass doors. “Is that one of ours?"

“Hey LJ — you missed out on your grand tour of our humble abode yesterday,” Trevor points out helpfully now. "Just so you know? There’s an in-ground jacuzzi out back and a small attached swimming pool. It’s pretty cool — only the chalets get one. And it’s only this deep—” Trevor places his hand just below my ear and I can no longer look at Peter because I want to die. “But they’re real relaxed in this part of the world. No pool fences! Spoils the aesthetic. So just watch out when it gets dark, okay? There’s no lights either.”

“Duly noted,” I manage to deadpan before turning back to the stove and my back to the rest of the room. 

They carry on without me after that, the spit and sizzle of bacon on the frying pan a welcome excuse for me to disappear in plain sight for a while. And I listen on as the years melt away and we’re back in Adler High and Peter Kavinsky is king of the cafeteria crowd once more while I’m the outlier. Except these were once my people too.

Trev, Chris, even John Ambrose is teasing Peter as he grates the potatoes. They play catch up easily with each other, picking up from where they left off as they pick on my French toast. It’s unsettling, like time travel done wrong, and I’m still working out how I feel about all this when Gen enters the room.

The room still changes the moment Gen enters the room,

I'm directing everyone to set the table when I see her. She ignores everyone and makes a beeline for Peter the moment she hears his voice and I watch as he turns to her and softens a little. The tension leaves his shoulders as they do hers. It’s like two old friends sharing a secret sigh of relief. 

Or two old lovers. Ex-lovers. Lovers, nevertheless. You never really let go of your first, they say. Even when you’re older. 

“You okay?” I read her lips as she gazes up at Peter who is so, so tall.

“I’m good,” he grins back and follows with, “it’s so good to see you, Gen.” They hug then, and I turn back to those damn pancakes suddenly wishing I hadn’t gone overboard with breakfast. I'm desperate for the safety of my room. 

“Excuse me,” I smile wanly when Peter and Gen cross back to our table, she leading him here by his hand. And I have no right to feel this way, but it all comes crashing back — the irrational flash of anger, the flutter of panic, the overwhelming desire to flee the room. It’s been seventeen long years and in just two minutes, I’m back in Adler High wrestling with this phantom mess of hormones and pettiness and insecurity that shouldn’t still be there. The adulting, rational part of my head is sternly barking that I should be better than this. That this is just knee-jerk stuff. That I don’t actually _care_. 

I flee the room anyway, citing a migraine brought on by the ever-trusty jet lag for my sudden need for seclusion. John Ambrose comes up later and leaves a plate of breakfast at my door. I wonder if he’s seen through me. I don’t wonder, actually. I know he does.


	4. Hello, Kitty

I do actually fall asleep after all, the laptop wide open with good intentions, the jet lag kicking in faithfully so I’m not made a liar. When I stir, it’s only because my phone is vibrating and when I swipe to answer, I realise it’s Kitty and then I’m instantly awake.

“Hello, you.”

“Hello, you!” the youngest Song girl grins at me, showing all her teeth. 

“What time is it for you?”

“Just after nine at night. It's still Thursday for me.” I do a quick time conversion in my head and realise it’s already midday here. My body clock is all over the place.

Kitty is based in L.A. lately. We lament often that we’re all so far-flung now — Gogo in England with Ravi and my three blog-worthy nephews, me in NYC, Dad and Trina still in Virginia, and now Kitty in California with Sumiko. But it is what it is. Kitty goes by Katherine a lot more now. To the theatre world, my little sister is the coveted up and coming playwright Katherine Song Covey — incisive, feminist, fresh, foul-mouthed, and ever honest. In short, she’s just more Kitty than ever. 

“What’s it like?” She’s already shooting her twenty questions. “Their website looks insane! Which hut did you end up getting?”

“None,” I reply, changing the camera direction on my phone so it faces outwards now. “Chris went and booked me into the biggest log cabin. The chalet, the one with all the bedrooms.”

There’s a cackle of laughter and then because it’s Kitty, she’s already two steps ahead and cutting to the chase.

“Who’s there with you!”

“Don’t you want to see the rest of my bedroom?” I hedge, panning the phone so she gets a sweeping panorama from my balcony. It really is a million-dollar view — nothing and no one as far as the eye can see from here to eternity except the natural beauty of original Malaysian rainforest. If I pretend there aren’t about thirty other huts dotting the mountainside, that is. 

My bedroom itself is something out of a fairytale, with a tented ceiling swathed in cream drapes and diaphanous curtains. The highland breeze always feels like early spring except without the hayfever. I love the bed most of all — huge, rustic, four-poster and unapologetically romantic, the kind of bed I used to read about in high school and then dream about getting dropped on gently before I'm thoroughly ravaged by a tender beast of a man with a long, smooth sword…

“Who’s there with you, Lara Jean!” Kitty’s voice cuts in again. She’s not buying the sweeping panorama, she says. She’s already devoured the website. 

“Well… Chris and Trev have the biggest room downstairs…” 

“So not playing born-again virgins until the wedding night, huh,” deduces my younger sister. “Very good, carry on.”

“Gen is here…”

“Gen?” Kitty sits up. “Genevieve, your-old-nemesis Gen? Boyfriend-coveting, I-slept-with-him-first, If-I-Can't-Have-Him-You-Fucking-Get-Your-Cute-Korean-Hands-Off-Him _Gen?_ ”

"THANK YOU for the history lesson," I cut in while I frantically lower my phone volume. The walls are freakishly thin here. “We’re not in high school anymore, Kitty. And she _is_ the cousin of the bride.”

“Leopards don’t change their spots,” Kitty mutters darkly. “What about the other rooms?”

I’m balancing the plate of my half-eaten breakfast in one hand now while I hold the phone in the other and manoeuvre my bedroom door with my foot. Every other bedroom door’s wide open, which can only mean they’re all out and ready for housekeeping. I’d been hoping for that. Counting on having the place to myself.

The spiral cantilever staircase is mercifully generous in width but I’m still stepping down very gingerly as I mumble, “John Ambrose…”

“ _He’s_ there?” Kitty shakes her head. “This is all your nightmares coming true, isn’t it. The Boy That Never Measured Up And Knows It.” She shudders dramatically. "Why’s Chris doing this!”

“It’s not so bad,” I half-heartedly reply. “They’re all close friends now, really. I’m the one that needs to get over high school. Everyone else has adulted and moved on.” Without me, I might add. But I don’t. “Seriously,” I placate her when I see she's about to object. “It’s nice, really. It’s fine. It’s good! Healthy, even.” I’m starting to ramble. "I’ve been so busy, I hardly have time to catch up with anyone. This way, I’m forced to—oh!"

Peter’s draped on the longest settee in the living room, his laptop on the low coffee table, a steaming mug in his hands. But it’s the thing on his face that truly catches me off guard: matte black-rimmed glasses perched on that perfect straight nose, his thick brows furrowed as he looks up at me and my little annoying sister in my phone, an errant lock of wavy hair tumbling into his eye. And suddenly his sexy quotient ratchets up fifty points and I’m rooted to the spot, a horribly familiar feeling washing over me.

“OH MY GOD, PETER!” screams Kitty on the phone. If she could leap out of my phone now to grab him, she would.

“YOU LEFT ME, YOU BASTARD!” she wails, but she’s also delighted so she’s bouncing on her bed now. “You told me we’d stay together forever even after you guys split. You promised!”

And amazingly, he _laughs._ I watch as he brushes that lock of hair away from his face almost self-consciously. “I’m sorry,” he replies and we both know he really means it. “I fucked that one up, didn’t I.”

“You sure as hell did!” Kitty half-yells back, but then she smiles sweetly at him and it takes me back, it really does. “Forgiven. You broke my tender, highly impressionable, preadolescent heart, Kavinsky. Into a million, zillion pieces. But I can never stay mad at you.”

He glances up at me and then our eyes lock. I’ve got nothing. But I’m still flushed as I stare at those glasses and there’s a million things that I shouldn’t be thinking that I do anyway.

They catch up on my phone while I wash my plate silently and hang around the kitchen like a bad smell. I learn a few more things about them both — how one of Kitty’s plays got picked up by a travelling repertory group she’s been dying to get in with, how he’s just been made partner where he is. He doesn’t play lacrosse seriously anymore, but sometimes he umpires matches overseas. 

“Are you seeing anyone?” Kitty demands and I cringe instantly. It’s so obvious. It’s too obvious. She knows I’m still in the room eavesdropping the hell out of this conversation. Bad Kitty.

“I’m not,” Peter replies without missing a beat as I start to make my escape. I shouldn’t listen. This doesn’t concern me. It’s intrusive. The patio door slides open silently when I hear him add, “My plate’s full right now. Can’t afford complications.” He’s looking at me as he says this and I close the door behind me quickly. 

The way I see it, there are a few ways to handle the rest of this weekend. 

I could hang on to all of it — every angst, every cause for self-doubt, every regret and road not taken. I could replay high school and be an utter tragic while everyone else in this house has clearly moved on to better things. As Peter has, as I study him still chatting with Kitty. As _I_ have, I remind myself. 

I could retreat even more. I’m still unpacking why I ended up walking away from these friendships, and it honestly stings to know I’m no longer a part of them in any meaningful way. You grow up believing these people are your friends forever and then you wake up one day when you’re thirty-four _ish_ and realise you’re not as good a friend as you believed you would always be. It’s sobering. I feel like an asshat and I’m not a little ashamed. 

I stare at Peter and Kitty through the glass doors and it’s like the years apart have disappeared between them. They’ve always had a spark that’s all their own, something that used to comfort and delight me when Peter and I were so wrapped up in each other and so much in love. Just like I used to have such a crush on Josh when he was with Margot, I’m very sure Kitty had a crush on Peter. I’m almost sure he knew it too. And he was always so tender and sensitive to her feelings for him. A sudden memory flashes past, the one about her birthday and how he’d made such a fuss of bringing her flowers and driving her — and only her — to middle school in his two-seater Audi. I had to drive myself to school. It was worth it to see how happy it’d made her. 

It was one of the many, many things I had adored about Peter Kavinsky. 

I want in, I decide. I don’t know how. 

The reflection on the glass door is one of a grown woman, hair shortened to just past the shoulders, sleekly parted to the side and layered in a dramatic concave by a three-hundred dollar stylist. My clothes are monochrome and understated, I'm well and widely regarded in my profession, and apart from dropping into neck-deep swimming pools in the middle of the night, I have the sort of poise and quiet confidence I used to dream about when I was in college. 

I might be the same girl deep down. But I’m also different now. And while I can’t undo some of my life choices, this is my friends' wedding and I’m determined to be better company.

* * *

“Thanks for your phone.”

I take it from Peter’s hand and our fingers brush. And instead of flinching, I will myself to hold my position and smile. Something relaxes in his shoulders so he smiles back. 

“Kitty is… well?” I ask carefully and he gives a small huff that sounds close to a chuckle. 

“She is, she is.” Peter stretches back into the settee and grabs a small bolster nearby to hug loosely. It looks tiny in his arms. There’s a hint of a fond smile on his face and it’s the most relaxed I’ve seen him when he’s alone with me. I could kiss my baby sister.

“She hasn’t changed a lot, has she.”

“Kitty's out of control,” I grin and then belatedly remember something. 

“Your phone…” I hesitate. “It didn’t get wet because of this morning, did it?”

“Slipped into the pool from my pocket when I was leaning in to pull you up. No big,” he waves vaguely, even though I feel bad now. “It was on its way out anyway. I was supposed to get a new one before this trip but I ran out of time.”

“Is it gonna be a problem?”

He gestures lazily at his laptop on the coffee table. “Two-factor authentication,” he smirks. “Can’t log into any serious work without my cell, it appears.” He sits up suddenly. “Unless…”

“Unless…?” 

“I’ve got the car…” He flicks his wrist over and stares at his watch. I still can’t get over those glasses, I realise. The more serious he looks, the more I want to… 

“Wanna head into town?” There’s a calculative look on his face, like he’s still weighing up something. 

“What?”

“Kuala Lumpur is about an hour away, maybe less. I could duck into the city, buy a phone…”

“Your SIM card is probably still working,” I add optimistically.

“I’ll need your help,” he reasons, looking at my phone meaningfully. “I'll need directions.” His eyes are bright and innocent but his mouth is curling ever so slightly at the corner, that sly, shy smile that was as knowing and irresistible and hopeful then as it is now. 

“You owe me,” he adds as his _pièce de résistance_ and I pretend we’re only talking about his phone. 

But I still want to try one last thing.

“Give me your dead cell,” I command him and at first he’s puzzled but he complies, obediently climbing up to his room and then returning with his dead iPhone. I follow him up, grabbing my handbag from my room. He’s on the opposite side of the floor from me but we meet in the middle on the way down the spiral stairs. 

“I want to try something,” I explain as I take his phone from him. There’s a small Tupperware of jasmine rice in the pantry and I bring it up to the kitchen bench now. Carefully, I remove his SIM card using the needle from my emergency sewing kit in my bag before burying his phone in the bucket of uncooked grains, making sure the whole thing is completely submerged. I return the bucket to the pantry.

“Alright, let’s go.” I grab my handbag, ignoring how his mouth falls open slightly.

“You’re a strange one, Covey,” he murmurs close behind me and I smile. 


	5. The Lover, The Bimmer, and Me

Peter Kavinsky still drives like a man used to driving, like someone who actually enjoys it. And it doesn't escape my notice how he's gone up in the world. His flight leaves on Sunday like mine but even with such a short visit, he's rented a gorgeous midnight blue bimmer that moves like a panther and hugs the corners all the way back down the mountain. As for his eyewear, I was sad to see his glasses go but when he casually swapped them for a pair of Tom Ford sunnies, my stomach did another strange flip-flop. 

He looks like a man. He _is_ a man. I don't know why that still surprises me, but it does. 

Some things haven't changed. Like how he helps me into the car before walking over to his side. Like the way he checks on me if he has to brake a little, his left hand shooting across instinctively as if to hold me back. (It's left-hand drive here, and it doesn't even faze him. He drives like he's always lived here.) I'd forgotten the little things, like how he holds the back of my headrest as he reverses one-handed, like how he'll wait before I'm buckled and safe before he even starts the car. It doesn't mean anything anymore, these little gestures. It's like muscle memory, baked in. Kavinsky Chivalry honed over the years until I'm fairly certain it's all just part of him now. The _niceness_ is all him. It's got nothing to do with me.

But it's hard not to swoon inside just a little. I'm a successful woman of independent means who isn't afraid to live alone anymore and I oversee a publication that is now near the forefront of the nation's commentary and analysis on international affairs. I've got my finger constantly on the pulse. We're ahead of the zeitgeist — hell, we're starting to set what the zeitgeist should be. And in all that, I guess I'd forgotten how sexy gallantry is. 

There are so many things I want to say to him. But instead, the first real thing I blurt out is, "I didn't know, you know, t-that you live in New York."

And then I wait, my own words playing back in my head while the rest of me just groans and sinks into the leather bucket seat.

"Yeah?" he replies, and he flicks me a quick glance before he looks back at the road ahead. And then he's channel surfing the radio and we both focus on that until he adds, "I should have looked you up. But the longer I waited, the busier I got, and then... you know how it goes."

I nod. I'm not sure what I'm agreeing with, though. Was he talking about getting snowed in by work... or about how we lose our nerve to reach out, the longer we wait? He clears his throat. We're both still staring ahead.

"I read you, you know. On and off. Like, I'd see your byline now and then and I'll stop to read it.” He grins suddenly. “I'm lying — I drop _everything_ I'm doing. You are a phenomenal writer, Covey."

"Thanks," I blush. It's a compliment I've heard so often that I eventually got promoted for it, after all. And yet now that it’s coming from him, I'm deeply and ridiculously flattered. "Lately, I don't get to do that so much. I miss writing, actually," I confess, looking at him now. "My work is exhilarating and I wouldn't trade it for anything. But I miss crafting a story."

"Then write more," is his simple encouragement. "You're the editor, aren't you? Isn't that the job perk, getting to decide what finally goes in?"

I laugh a little because it's oversimplistic and yet he's dead right. Yes, I could choose to write more. And maybe I will, now that I know he's reading...

We talk shop after that, filling each other in on all the professional milestones we missed in each other's lives, carefully skirting around matters too close to the heart. He did his Master of Law in UVA and then cast his net far and wide so he ended up headhunted by a huge corporate law firm in Chicago. Then he got sick of Chicago and decided to head back to the east coast. I tell him about winning a scholarship to do my Masters in political science in Columbia, and moving north as a result. And then never wanting to leave New York again.

“Remember our senior trip?” I smile at him a little self-consciously. “I remember soaking in the city, all that _energy_ , for the very first time, how it blew me away. I remember promising myself I’d come back one day.”

“I think we both made that promise,” Peter corrects me lightly and I glance at him but he doesn’t look resentful. “I also remember getting pulled up by the security guard at the Empire State Building, though.”

 _“You’re in New York City, boy,”_ I mimic the guard badly. _“You can’t just leave a backpack on the ground for your proposal!”_

Peter raises the pitch of his voice to a little-boy squeak. “ _It’s actually a promposal?_ ” he corrects my guard and I genuinely laugh, covering my mouth as I do. “God,” he shakes his head, grinning widely now. “The things I did…” 

He stops short and looks away, and I can’t help but wonder if he meant to say ' _the things I did for you.’_

“Always the grand gestures,” I reply, keeping it light. 

“Not anymore.” The grin flattens to a grimace. “The last time I proposed, I was sitting on my living room couch during the Super Bowl halftime.”

All colour drains from my face as my heart drops to my stomach.

“Well!” I try to sound light and airy but it only comes out hoarse. “That’s one way to announce an engagement! Congratulations!” The words sound hollow, tinny. "When’s the special day?” I’m gripping my bag so tight, I can feel my fingers through the other side.

“I called it off.” Peter definitely looks unhappy now. “Look… forget it. What a stupid way to tell you. I just…”

“You don’t owe me an explanation, Peter.”

“I know. And yet why does it feel wrong if I don’t tell you…” He runs his hand through his hair, carelessly undoing his comb-over. The sound he makes in his throat sounds an awful lot like frustration.

“Ignore me,” he finally says. “I don’t mean to put this on you. It’s just—“

I place my hand over his, the one he’s resting on his left thigh. I didn’t plan to, but it feels like the right thing to do now. He stills instantly. 

“Peter,” I tell him in a low voice. “This isn’t… easy for me either.” I let go of his hand, lean back in my seat and smile. “But I want to be here anyway. It’s high time we put the past to bed, don’t you think?”

He doesn’t answer right away and with every pregnant second that passes, my insides turn icier. 

“Agreed.” And this time he turns to look at me. We lock eyes and it’s a little contract, signed wordlessly.


	6. Kavinsky Nice

We find the Apple store and I remind him about double-checking the terms for international warranties and ensure he has all he needs to claim a tax refund at the airport. Peter’s amused, reminds me that his work is almost certainly going to foot the bill, and then teases me about being in the wrong profession. But we’re in and out of the store in forty-five minutes. It’s only a quarter to two.

“Lunch?” he asks, flicking his watch over again with a frown. “Or… late-night supper? I can’t tell anymore. Hungry?” And I nod, suddenly famished. It’s Friday afternoon and there’s a sudden squash of people in the mall that’s almost overpowering compared to what we faced when we first got here. But he carves a way out for both of us easily, cutting an effortless swath like a hot knife through butter. When we hit the ground floor, there’s a small expo and the swamp of bodies is just impossible now. I try not to lose sight of him even as the crowd starts to swallow me whole. I'm so glad he’s so tall.

“Covey!” he calls over the throng, extending his arm. “Hold my hand!” So I do, and he pulls me to him firmly so I’m flushed against his side, his other arm around me like a shield. We barrel through the crowd together this way and I remember the fit of us, how I can tuck under his chin comfortably and how safe that used to feel.

He smells like cedarwood and cinnamon and Peter Kavinsky. 

* * *

“Here’s your SIM…” I announce officiously as I fish it out of my purse. The lunch crowd seems to have petered out now that it’s past two in the afternoon, and we’ve both just ordered a Japanese Teriyaki Chicken Bento Box with the works. We wait with bated breath for the phone to come alive and when Peter gets a signal, he crows in triumph before giving me a high five.

“I’m back in business,” he grins. 

“I don’t know that you’d get much work done now,” I point out. "We’re going back in two days anyway. And tomorrow’s the big day.”

“Still…” he grins, swiping his start screen. “It’s great to feel less naked again. And besides, I can experiment now.”

My phone pings right then, and even though I make it a rule never to answer my cell during meal times, it starts pinging three more times until I give up.

“Please excuse me,” I mumble sheepishly. “Let me just check which impatient jackass is trying to reach—oh!” I look up at him. “Is this you?”

“So you didn’t change your number,” Peter smiles a little smugly.

“No,” I stare at his number, currently classed as an unknown. “I've kept it since college.” And then a thought dawns on me. “You’ve kept my number all this time?”

“Well… I always suspected that you’d changed it. But yeah.”

“But you never tried to call? Or text?”

This time he stares at me tightlipped, a muscle twitching at his jaw. “I thought about it,” he admits eventually. “But every scenario in my head didn’t play out well. So I didn’t. And then you left for New York and I guess I just assumed it became a dead number."

I want to kick myself. It was a hypocritical thing to ask, seeing how I never called or texted him either. And he’s a gentleman for not countering with just that. 

“Are you alright,” I ask, staring down at my miso soup. “Me being here, I mean. Is it strange seeing me again after... all this time?” I finish a little spinelessly.

“Probably as strange to me as it is for you,” Peter points out nonchalantly. “Come to think of it, you have it harder, actually. John Ambrose being here and all.” 

My head snaps up at that. But Peter’s face is inscrutable, although his gaze is piercing. Even a little searching. 

“Was he good to you?” Peter asks suddenly, and then he brushes the air impatiently with his fingers as if dismissing the question. “It’s a stupid thing to ask because I know he was.”

“John Ambrose and I ended a long time ago, Peter.”

“Of all the guys..." He stops and tries again. "I'm glad, you know,... that you went with someone decent like McClaren and not some dumb UNC jock.” 

My mouth twists to the side in a small, wry smile. “ _You’re_ a jock, Peter. And you're hardly dumb.”

He scoffs a little at my description of him, the roll of his eyes self-deprecating. “I haven’t played in years.”

“You still look good, Kavinsky.” I’m not smiling so much now. “You’ve aged well.”

“So have you, Covey.” 

It gets a little easier after this, with John Ambrose aired and out of the way. Somehow the boys had kissed and made up over the years on their own and they’re friendly enough now, though not too close. Sometimes I forget that they were best friends in middle school and that their friendship goes way back, before even me. But then I remember what Chris told me yesterday — how Peter had made them all swear never to mention me to him or him to me again. And I can’t help but wonder why he was able to forgive John Ambrose… while he couldn’t forgive me. 

Like a silent pact or a careful dance around the mouth of a volcano, we don't mention past loves after that — not us, not John Ambrose, not even his mysterious ex-fiancée I'm still a little troubled by. Instead we focus on browsing the local shops, much to my delight. I can’t remember the last time I window shopped with a willing man who wasn’t gay. I tell Peter as much after a while and he laughs and reminds me that his mother was single for a long time, and he used to be her porter and shopping companion. I don’t buy that for a second. There are plenty of guys I know who grew up with women and would never have the patience or kindness to walk aimlessly in a mall with their wives or girlfriends, let alone their mothers.

“How _is_ your mother,” I ask politely, “and Owen?”

“Mom remarried when I was in Chicago,” Peter explains. “I don’t know the guy but they seem happy. She moved with Max to Florida years ago. Owen is still in Virginia and getting married next year. He still lives in our old house, actually. But he’s selling it soon.” Peter hesitates for a moment before adding, “I know you always thought Mom didn’t like you. But she did — honestly, she did, Lara Jean. She liked you a heck more than she ever did Gen, I can tell you.”

I give a small mirthless laugh but bite my tongue so I don’t make an unkind jab about what that says about Gen. Instead, I remind him that his mother never wanted him to start college with me hanging around him like a rusting ball and chain.

That was absolutely the worst thing to bring up. 

“We could have proved her wrong,” he says instead and _poof_ — just like that, the volcano's burped and we’re back in his bedroom where I’m quietly, horribly drunk. I’m still undressed, trying to make him see how letting him start college a free man was my ultimate sacrificial act of love _for him._ That his mother was right all along, that Peter had no business giving up his scholarship to UVA for me because they couldn't afford to, that we would have both lived a half-life traveling a hundred and eighty miles each way on weekends on top of his lacrosse training. 

“No, Peter…” I shake my head sorrowfully. We’re standing in the middle of a Malaysian mall, there are people milling around us everywhere, and we’re doing this. We’re actually hashing this out right now. I don’t know if I can do this.

“I never should have let you talk me into it.”

“And I don’t regret letting you go.” The moment those words leave my mouth, I suck my teeth. It’s not at all what I mean, not the way he’s hearing them now at least. Peter's face pinches into a frown before he turns away from me, shaking his head irritably. 

“Listen…” I urge him, grabbing his large hands in mine so he pays attention. I wait for him to look at me before I continue. “Did it hurt like hell, of course it did—“

He scoffs but I push on. 

“But what I mean when I say I don’t regret it… I mean, look at you! Peter Kavinsky, do you know how impressed I am? You’re listing off the highlights but I can already guess that they’re not the main headlines of your accomplishments. Your star has risen _so_ high. If my one selfless act of letting you go contributed even a smidge to the great guy you are today, then I am honoured and grateful.”

Peter looks down at his shoes, but there’s just a hint of a smile on his lips that just might be wistful and I gaze at his eyelashes, reminded again how naturally long and curly they are and how I used to covet them. 

“I really, really loved you, Covey.”

“And I was crazy about you. Did you think that was easy for me? Breaking up with you — the hottest, sweetest boyfriend I ever scored — remains one of the most traumatic events of my life!”

He looks up at me and flashes a grin. “Really? You were kinda happy-drunk at the time, from what I remember.”

“Dutch courage, my boy.” I thread my arm through his and lead him towards an ethnic clothes shop I’d been eyeing from the corner of my eye.

“Come on, Kavinsky. Time to lie and tell me how pretty I look.”

* * *

I end up with three skirts and four tops I suspect I might never wear again, but I bought them because of the way he'd looked at me.

“Colors, Covey.” He’s standing right behind me now and staring at me through the full-length mirror, a satisfied smile on his face. I try not to feel how his breath lightly grazes my neck. “I know you’re a sophisticated intellectual thought leader now but god, Lana Jean. I miss the way you used to throw the weirdest shit together and make it work.”

It’s strange to hang out like this, like we’re friends but we’re not. We’d been group friends in middle school, and then accidental friends when we were faking a relationship, and then we were a _real_ and deep and pure, and I almost knew him better than I knew myself. This is nothing like any of that. There’s history now, silent and swollen between us since the moment he fished me out of that pool this morning. And yet there’s also a newness, mingled with haunting familiarity. The longer we hang out like this, the more the awkward fades away into something almost resembling the past.

I forget how easy he is to be with. How attentive he can be. How he can make it seem like you’re the only person he’s consumed with right this moment and nothing and no-one else matters. It’s how he goes out of his way to put someone at ease, that special brand of Kavinsky Nice that’s on the right side of smarmy yet goes over the line just a little so you come away a bit dazzled and wondering if he’s secretly into you. I wonder if part of his magnetism is because he genuinely likes people. And who doesn't like to be around someone who seems to like you? It’s why everywhere we go, shop assistants give us extra attention, and the women get especially giggly and fawning. It’s like I’m not even there.

And just when I’m feeling invisible, he’ll twirl me in a dress or press his hand absently into the small of my back as he holds the door open for me. And it’s like a spotlight directed on me suddenly, a bit of Kavinsky _shing_ sprinkled on me like fairy dust so people suddenly remember that I’m with him. It should piss me off more except it’s _appallingly_ gratifying. 

He’s only gotten more charming with age. And every time our fingers brush, my neck and ears tickle.

* * *

It’s just after four P.M. Malaysian time when we get back to the car and that’s when I look at Peter and realise it’s four A.M. for him and he’s hardly had any sleep.

“I’m driving, Kavinsky.”

He cocks his head to the side and eyes me critically.

“But you hate driving.”

“I can reverse parallel park now.”

“So you still hate driving, then.”

I roll my eyes. “Look,” I reason in my most reasonable voice. “We have good maps, I don’t think we’re hitting peak-hour traffic yet, and if I lose confidence, I promise I’ll tell you and you can take over, alright? It’s just that I know you’re jet-lagged and you’ve had less sleep than me and we still have to stay awake for a wedding rehearsal in less than four hours. So.” I waggle my fingers until he drops his key in my hand.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m a new woman,” I lie and walk to the passenger seat out of habit before he steers me back to the driver’s seat on the right. _Left-hand drive,_ I remember belatedly and start panicking slightly. 

But just having him beside me is plenty comforting and somehow I manage to negotiate Malaysian traffic in a borrowed bimmer without too much drama. Some Random comes out of nowhere at one point and I jam the brake, my arm shooting across to Peter's chest just as his does to mine. "Ow," I grimace when we hit each other. He exchanges quick and furious gesticulations with our jaywalker before leaning over, his face creased with concern.

"You alright?" he checks, rubbing my left wrist with his thumb, but he doesn't insist on taking over the wheel. 

My hand, my wrist still tingle long after he lets go.

He falls asleep eventually even though he tried, valiantly, to keep his eyes prised apart for all of it. Meanwhile, my eyes are peeled open in half terror that I might just kill both of us — and just when Peter and I are reconnecting again! I'm crawling back up the mountainside like a little ol' lady and I'm sure I've pissed off the train of cars steadily forming behind my tail. But this car is a work of engineering art; an elegant beast of a ride so quiet and smooth — even with my geriatric driving — that Peter only starts to stir when I pull slowly into the carport beside our chalet. 

We stumble in together, two groggy New Yorkers, and we don’t even make the spiral stairs before we collapse in an exhausted heap on the longest settee. And maybe we had every intention of retiring to our respective rooms. But the last thing I remember is Peter gathering me close, one strong, reassuring arm wrapped around my waist just in case I might fall. 


	7. Life is Not a Dress Rehearsal

There's a murmur, like a babbling brook, and I'm having the best sleep I've had in forty-eight hours or months when I gradually open my eyes to find four faces staring down at me.

I jolt and then I realise I can't move much, and that's because Peter's arm is still holding me flush against him. His face is snuggled in the hollow between my neck and shoulder, he's snoring into my ear just a little and yes, we've definitely been caught _spooning._

Trever looks smug. Chris looks like she lost a bet. Genevieve is openly scowling and John Ambrose's face is unreadable.

"Wake up..." I grit my teeth and nudge Peter with an elbow. It takes a few goes before he finally stirs. And then he's sitting bolt upright and rubbing the back of his head as if all of this is somehow normal.

"What up."

"What up?" Chris echos dumbly at Peter. _"What up?!"_

"You coming or not," Genevieve snaps, looking only at Peter. I check the time on my phone and stifle a horrified squeal.

"Yup," Trevor rubs his hands gleefully. "Wedding rehearsal time!"

"And you need to try your dress on," bosses Chris, pulling me up. John Ambrose just looks at me and walks away.

There's no time to explain ourselves, which is a mercy. It's all action the moment we pull into the hotel lobby and Chris's wedding planner greets us at the top of the entrance stairs. And no wonder Chris is so chilled — Idayu has got the thing down to the microsecond and I'm whisked away upstairs to a tiny room with a wizened local tailor, needle and thread clenched between his smoke-stained teeth.

"Try," he tells me, gesturing to a make-shift change room and then I'm gazing at the pastel confection draped on the chair.

It's beautiful. It's Chris, but it's also me — the perfect blend of boho-chic whimsy with an extra something. It's a two-piece — a boat-neck off-white peekaboo lace blouse with soft petal sleeves cinched at the waist by a full chiffon lilac skirt with a very, very high slit placed just off-centre. I laugh when I peek under the skirt to find black lace-up army boots with chunky high heels. They're exactly like the pair I used to wear to Adler High, the ones that Gen used to ridicule. 

The skirt needs taking up by two inches but those boots are _perfect_ and perfectly nostalgic, and the tailor — Mr Teo — grunts his overall approval even when he sighs regrettably over the boots.

"Ugly," he pronounces bluntly and all I can do is smile wanly before he shoos me to the next room.

It's hair people, and they tut and fuss over my dramatic concave bob. Apparently, keeping my high school straight-and-long would have done them more favours. 

"It's too modern!" sighs the main stylist as she snips her scissors in the air distractedly. The sound is menacing. "At least the other one kept her hair simple and easy!”

“And her figure is so nice!” the other stylist enthuses and I try not to grimace.

"We'll have to curl as much as we can and hope for soft waves," decides another, running her fingers through my hair. "But I know this stubborn texture. Maybe the curls can't hold."

"Hairspray," they decide together and do a trial run. By the time they're done, all of me smells like half the bottle. 

"I feel like I should be doing something more," I confess to Chris when I'm finally allowed to join them all in the ballroom. Gen is still glowering at me and I can only guess it has everything to do with finding Peter and me on the couch. And while I can understand Gen's surprise, her simmering hostility is getting under my skin. There's a growing sense of malaise building within me as I wonder what I'm missing, exactly. 

Chris snorts. "That's why I sold out and got a wedding planner, didn't I. I have no other instruction for you two except to drink a lot for my sake. Relax! This is a party! And I'm fully intending to enjoy this one." She raises a glass of champagne and toasts the room. "Let's start!" she yells and sails out the door to the waiting wing. I only just have time to say hi-bye to the smattering of people I recognise in the room — Chris's parents, her grandma, Trevor's folks, and some of his and Peter's friends from high school I met yesterday. 

And then I hear an all too familiar voice yell across the room.

"Largie, that you?!”

Gabe Rivera, like Peter, used to be an attacker in Adler’s lacrosse team and a permanent feature of the cool cafeteria crowd. Thanks to him, he’d convinced the lacrosse team to slur ‘Lara Jean’ so fast, it blurs into _Largie_ — a nickname Gabe then took repeated delight in proving its irony

“Don’t you dare,” I warn him now as I recognise that mischief in his grin. The moment he breaks into a jog, then a run, I back away. He wouldn’t!

“Don’t you fucking dare, Gabe!” I shriek, half-laughing and terrified. And then it’s really happening and I turn and _run_. People who know what’s about to go down are already killing themselves laughing.

Gabe sprints across the ballroom, darting between chairs dotting the space between us easily like a gazelle, before he scoops all five feet one-and-a-half inches of me up and flips me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing.

The ballroom erupts into cheers and howls as I’m kicking my legs helplessly, as Gabe spins around and around on the spot in triumph, roaring like he’s Rocky. I’m laughing so hard, tears are coming to my eyes. 

Then I catch sight of Peter in mid-spin as Gabe slows and there’s such a tender look on his face, I’m suddenly hit with a huge dollop of nostalgia. He used to love how much the guys genuinely liked me.

"Hot damn, Largie!" Gabe gives a low whistle when he finally sets me down and flicks an appreciative gaze over me. He tips his chin at Peter behind me. "And you let her get away?"

I don't look at Peter. I don't look at anyone as I make a half sprint for it and duck into the waiting wing but I know my face is a treacherous dull red. Gen looks almost murderous as she hands me a wilting bouquet of cloth roses.

"You're first because you're short," she informs me tersely and pushes me in front of her. 

It had surprised me at first when Chris told me she and Trev were getting married in a cushy mountain resort with all the luxe trappings. I had expected more outlandish ideas like the top of a volcano or pictured them shouting their vows over a love guru while suspended on a ski lift. A hotel ballroom seems so impersonal and prosaic, even if the location is quite exotic.

But then the staff close off two wings of the ballroom with moving wall panels, and the mood of the room is instantly more relaxed and intimate. Then they pull the heavy theatre drapes apart, the ones covering floor to ceiling glass that spans the entire width of the wall so the room is instantly awash with light and colour. And there, framed in front of us like a priceless Bierstadt, is a breathtaking sunset over the ancient Titiwangsa mountain ranges. Chris and Gen’s grandma starts to clap with delight and as if on cue, the men troop on stage in front of the glass wall — the celebrant, Trevor, Peter and John Ambrose, just as an indie band starts to play.

"Aaaand elegantly...." murmurs Idayu as she counts down, guiding two flower girls before me. "Aaaand gracefully...." She holds the page boy back, counts the timing in his ear before she releases him. She turns to me now and taps my shoulder as a warning shot. 

"Aaaand... _go_."

I walk down the centre aisle, remembering Dad and Trina's wedding, and then Margot's wedding. Kitty swears she and Sumiko will never marry, which just leaves this — my last chance walking down this aisle as bridesmaid. Maybe even at all. I inhale slowly, willing my steps to lengthen, willing myself to glide as much as I can. I hold my head up high and exhale slowly. And then I see him.

Peter's standing beside Trevor and he's looking at no one and nothing else, except me. And he's just so handsome tonight, even with a thin jacket thrown over his T-shirt and jeans, even with his hair untouched by product. He's looking at me with those dark eyes that seem to say exactly what I've longed for years to hear from him and something in me just breaks a little and starts to ache. I can't believe I'd let him go, all those years ago. Was I insane? Or just stronger and wiser than I am now? Would we have ended up here instead, me walking to him, us heading off into a sunset of our own surrounded by people who love us?

Was it worth it? It's like two parallel worlds I can't even begin to reconcile. I love my life. I love my job. But I'd loved him truly and madly and deeply — enough to set him free. It's hard to think of waste and opportunity cost when there's countless loss and gains on both sides. I had chosen for him. I had chosen for _us_ . We're both doing very well now but God, _I miss him_.

The rest of it is just a blur now. I'm vaguely aware of the celebrant asking for rings, of Trevor and Chris goofing around with a coke can tab, of Gen fidgeting and huffing beside me. I don't really know what's going on; I'm just staring the hell out of Peter Kavinsky, the boyfriend who got away. It's like a long, invisible thread holding our gaze across the joyful silliness between. The celebrant could be conducting the ceremony in High Valyrian and I wouldn't know. All I know is that Peter Kavinsky is looking at me the way I’m looking at him, and the longer we're eyeballing each other, the harder we're smiling. I feel the most ridiculous urge to giggle all of a sudden, like a tickle of champagne bubbles rushing up from deep within me. 

"And after kissing the bride, you both turn to the room... mind the steps... and then the rest should follow suit. Both flower girls on either side of the page boy..."

"What the hell do you think you're doing!" Genevieve hisses in my ear and I jolt from my reverie. "You're not partnering Peter, you're with John! _I'm_ with Peter!"

That got my attention like a smack in the face. I stumble away from Peter, and John Ambrose reaches over instantly and steadies me before I slip on the step. Mutely, I take his arm and start down the aisle, already missing the music cue.

"Maid of Honor and Best Man first," Gen hisses again so John Ambrose and I stop and stand aside while she takes her place beside Peter. Calmly, she slips a slim arm into his and gazes up at him, her face a careful blank. She’s wearing a soft pale cashmere blouse tonight because it’s chilly out, and it falls across her shoulders becomingly, baring one side. It’s something I’d actually wear and it looks great on her. Meanwhile her make up is flawless as usual, while I’d barely had time to glide on lippy. She’s only a little taller than me but she’s in heels tonight and when she pulls herself up to her full height like she’s doing now, she comes right up to Peter's mouth.

“Ready, Peter?" she asks in a low voice, her manner too familiar. 

“Yup. Always."

We all make it back to the end of the aisle. And then because I'd messed it up so badly just now, they make us all do it over again, this time to the music. At one point back down the aisle on the return, Peter leans into Gen and cracks a joke I can’t hear, but the look she returns him could freeze a small desert. He sees it too and now he’s hunching over her and asking what’s wrong, just quietly. I’m trying to read his lips, and at first it’s all a blur until I work out the words, _Is it Lara Jean?_ And when she finally deigns to speak after all that cajoling, it’s clear that he’s in the doghouse and she’s not happy.

We take a short break after this as Chris and Trev talk to the band about the music, and John Ambrose settles into the ballroom chair beside me. We’re watching the both of them now, Peter and Gen, decking it out verbally in the other corner of the ballroom.

“Is it just me, or does high school never end?” I finally ask John Ambrose. 

“It’s not what it looks like, Lara Jean.” And I don’t know if that’s supposed to comfort me or not.

“So what does it look like, John Ambrose?”

“Like an old couple fighting.”

Right. So we’re both thinking the same thing as we sink into our chairs and stare at a decades-old dynamic that just won’t resolve itself. 

“Maybe we never, ever change deep down,” I wonder aloud.

“I don’t believe that,” John Ambrose replies lightly. “I’m a big believer in people changing. I mean — look at Chris. Did you ever think she'd go mainstream and get married in some fancy mountain resort? But she grew up, and she loves her family.” We look over at her grandmother for a bit. She's almost ninety now and hard of hearing, but she's just sitting in her wheelchair absolutely thrilled to be here and doesn't want to miss out on anything. He looks at me. “And then, there's you.” He gestures at my wavy hair sprayed stiff, at my Brooks Brothers slacks and matching asymmetrical black turtleneck. 

“That’s just wardrobe,” I laugh wryly. “You haven’t heard the running commentary in my head. Trust me, the high school me is still alive and well and likes to overthink.”

“But you’re… different now. More detached. Quiet.” John Ambrose observes and when I open my mouth to protest, he cuts me off. “Yes, you’ve always been quiet. But there used to be an openness too. And then after college, maybe even before that…” He gives a little shrug and it’s not unkind, but I know exactly what he's getting at. “You got more guarded.”

He tips his chin at Peter and Gen in the corner. “So did he.” 

“Can I ask you something, John Ambrose?” 

He looks at me expectantly. “Of course.”

“How did… when did you and Peter start hanging out again? How did it all happen, especially after…”

“It was years after,” John Ambrose replies. “He might have already started in Chicago and I think he was in town to see his mother. He walked into a bar in Richmond I was already a regular of. And we met.”

“Of all the gin joints in the world,” I marvel. 

“We talked for a bit. Mostly we just agreed that it’d been a rough few years and no one got out unscathed. And then he drank me under the table.”

“No!” My eyes are bugging out of my head. I cannot imagine Peter sitting down and levelling with John Ambrose, much less getting almost drunk with him.

“Well… yeah. And then I started hanging out with Chris and Trevor more, so he’d join us from time to time.”

It doesn’t escape me at all, what he said. That bit about no one getting out unscathed.

“Can I ask another question?” I ask more meekly this time.

“Shoot.”

“Was I a terrible girlfriend?"

John Ambrose smiles at me now and it’s so tender that my heart catches for a moment. “No, you weren’t. I’m glad we gave it a shot. Otherwise, I suspect I’d have always wondered.”

“Wondered?”

“What it would have been like with you. This way,” he stretches back in his seat, pushing his thin chest out as he does. “This way, you’re not the one that got away.”

“For the record, John Ambrose — I’m sorry,” I tell him, placing my hand over his and squeezing it to press my meaning. “I know you’re being magnanimous, but I wasn’t being fair. Not by a long shot.”

“I knew what I was getting myself into, Lara Jean,” John Ambrose replies with an easy smile. “I just needed to try anyway. And you were great. You were always Lara Jean, even to me. I just wasn’t Peter Kavinsky, that’s all.” 


	8. So Close

He wasn’t Peter Kavinsky. Of course he wasn’t Peter Kavinsky.

“Hey you guys,” yells Chris to the ballroom from where she’s standing with the band. “We’re thinking of heading to the bar downstairs if you want to hang. But I think we’re done!” She gives two thumbs up and whoops.

John Ambrose wasn’t Peter Kavinsky. None of them were Peter Kavinsky. Except Peter Kavinsky.

I rise from my chair slowly. “’Scuse me…” I murmur absently to John Ambrose, the back of my knees brushing his legs as I step past him.

Because it’s set up to fail from the start, isn’t it. It’s ludicrous, expecting everyone else to be Peter Kavinsky. Except Peter Kavinsky. 

They’re still talking in the corner, Peter’s head bent in the way it does when he’s listening intently even if he doesn’t agree with everything you're saying.

I’ve got Peter Kavinsky right here.

“Hi!” I say brightly, interrupting Gen in mid-diatribe. “Sorry. I just… I just…” I look straight at Peter. “My head just feels heavy. You going to the bar with everyone?”

“I’m easy…” He frowns. “You need a lift back to the chalet?”

“No thanks!” But I kick myself immediately. And then I go for exactly what I came for. “Yes, actually. Sorry.” 

“No, no…” He stares at me. And swallows slowly. And then he flicks Gen a look. “We’re good?” And when she doesn’t answer immediately, he just sighs. “I promise we’ll talk about this later.”

“Later is too late!” she calls after us but we’re already walking out the door. 

* * *

We're walking. We're walking fast. By the time we hit the top of the grand stairs to the lobby, I'm almost jogging. Somewhere along the way, he's grabbed my hand and I'm clinging to it tight, my heart racing as we run down the length of the stairs. I'm not even worried that I'd trip and fall and break my neck on the cold marble. Peter Kavinsky's got me.

"I'm parked out here," he tells me, ushering me into the cool night air, one large hand on the small of my back. He bundles me in in no time flat and then runs — _runs_ — to his side of the car. I'm already buckled in and he checks deftly before he pulls out of the covered underground garage smooth and swift like Batman.

"What are you doing?" he asks as I'm frantically texting. 

"I'm sending Chris my apologies about drinks."

"Send her mine too."

He turns and _looks_ at me, and a familiar shiver runs down the length of my neck as I recognise the thirst mirroring my own. _Desire_. 

“STOP," I command him and he pulls instantly into the side of the narrow road, mounting the sidewalk roughly and then the manicured lawn of someone else's hut until we finally ground to a halt.

"What?" he asks, panting just a little. And that's when I lean over and cover his mouth with mine.

He kisses me back instantly, hungrily, our mouths opening as we taste each other with a greed pent up over acres and acres of time. His hand comes up and cradles my face, pulling me closer as my own fingers dig into his thick, black hair still baby-soft after all this time. I can't get close enough and I fumble impatiently with my seatbelt until I'm free. And then I'm scrambling on top of him, my legs straddling his lap, my back jammed into the steering wheel and I don't care. I just want to hold him and kiss him, hard. I need to feel him underneath me.

"Lara Jean..." he whispers like a worship, his hands roaming my back until they slip under my top, his lips descending from my mouth, across my jawline and down the most sensitive part of my neck so I sigh. He unhooks my bra with indecent ease and dexterity, and when he cups and gently massages my breast, I hiss a little. 

"Peter Kavinsky is touching my boob..." I laugh softly, my voice husky and low and delighted.

"It's been a long time, Covey." I feel him grin into my neck before he bites softly through the Merino wool and I sigh again.

Why did we wait this long? I’m scrabbling at his jacket, pushing it past his shoulders, yanking his T-shirt up roughly even though his seatbelt is still on so it’s twice as difficult and just bunches further up his chest instead. We’re laughing and kissing and laughing some more at my impatience, at his. It was _never_ like this, I remember. I'd yearned for him, once upon a time. I'd loved him, enough to give him my body. But never with such fervour, such desperate urgency. Like I could lose him again.

And that’s the crux, isn’t it. That’s the rub. Back then, I didn’t know I was going to lose him until I did. We were going to be together for keeps and then it took one stupid misunderstanding for it all to fall apart like a house of straw. Blindsided. Naïve. Neither of us wanting to see it coming, even with all the warning signs and impediments. And how do you come back from that? How do you trust this mighty rock again when it broke apart so damn easily in the end?

All it had taken was a half white lie, and he'd believed me. It’d been far too easy to persuade him that we were better apart. It was almost like he'd never trusted my feelings at all. And I don’t know that I ever recovered from that.

_I never would have given us up._

Except that’s exactly what he did.

“I don’t want to get hurt again,” I gasp suddenly, like I’m out of air. I feel Peter freeze and then slowly pull himself away.

“What are you saying, Lara Jean.”

“I just… We do this tonight, we do it again, and then what?” I start to fiddle with the thin silver chain at my throat, a new nervous habit. “We hang out in New York?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Maybe… yeah. What’s so awful about that?”

“And then what?” I stare at him. “Lunch and coffees? Friends with benefits? You knew I was in New York for _seven years_ and you had my number in your phone. And you never once called me!”

Peter squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head slightly. “Lara Jean… slow down. What the hell are you getting at.”

“I’m saying…” My voice is shaking now, all my frazzled thoughts clamoring at once and bottlenecking at my throat. “I’m saying I don’t think I can take you breaking my heart again, Peter Kavinsky. I don’t know that I can stand it twice.”

His eyes narrow at once. “ _I_ broke your heart?” He shakes his head slowly like he can't believe me. “I don’t know what you’re remembering, but I have a totally different recollection of events, Covey. _You_ dumped _me_ , remember!”

“It was the right thing to do by you!”

“You've mentioned that already,” he snaps. And I snap back. 

“And what about you!” 

“What about me!”

“The moment I actually work up the courage to sleep with you, you think I’m trying to break up with you! I mean, what the hell does that say about what you think of me? Did you think I was that heartless?”

“Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing right now?!” Peter shoots back, yanking his T-shirt back down roughly. “One moment you’re revving my engine and then the next thing I know, you’re claiming I'll break your heart!”

I look at Peter incredulously. “I’m not talking about _now_ , you impossible man! I’m talking about when we were eighteen! In your bedroom! That night when I was going to give my virginity to you, and you turned around and told me I was only doing it to love you and leave you!”

“And I was right!” Peter almost shouts. “You started giving me the speech about my mom, about that scholarship… It was like you’d written it out beforehand!”

“I WAS PIVOTING!” I yell. I cannot believe he still doesn’t get it. "AND I WAS SPEAKING EXTEMPORANEOUSLY.” 

“YOU BROKE MY HEART, LARA JEAN!” 

Silence as his words ring shrilly in the air like the aftermath of a gunshot. His face, his beautiful, unforgettable face is twisted in such remembered pain.

“You broke my heart,” he says again quietly, his hands dropping to his side. “And if that wasn’t bad enough, you started going out with John Ambrose.”

“Peter…”

“And I saw it coming, didn’t I. Even when he had that girlfriend, I was always jealous because I knew. He’d always had something for you. I don’t blame the guy. How could I? I was in love with you. Why would it be a stretch to believe that others couldn’t love you just as hard?”

Peter rubs the back of his head and sighs, and it sounds so defeated. And I’ve got nothing. I’m speechless, my mind a total blank.

“You know what kills me the most?” he finally says after a long silence. "It’s how John Ambrose did exactly what I would have done. He waited out at William & Mary, got a transfer to UNC as soon as he possibly could and then went straight for you. And you took him in. Just like that. It wasn’t even six months after you told me not to come running. You gave him a chance right after you told me I couldn’t do exactly that for you.”

“Your family couldn’t afford for you to give up your scholarship, Peter…” I whisper like a broken record, but it sounds so utterly unconvincing now, even to my own ears.

“Yeah?” Peter glances at me and huffs scornfully. “Well, I guess we never did find out if that were actually true."

“So why could you forgive him?” I ask bleakly. “John Ambrose told me about you two meeting in that bar in Richmond. And then you catching up with Chris and Trevor. Chris told me how you made her promise never to talk about me. And never to mention your name. All these years, and I never knew my oldest friend...” I can’t even finish that sentence. The tears are starting to well up now, the lump thickening painfully in my throat. These are such old, tired wounds. When the hell will they ever heal!

“I just couldn’t, Covey.”

“Seven years, Peter!” I burst finally. “Seven years in the same city! How much did you hate me, huh? You couldn’t even bring yourself to drop me a text? Or did you exorcise me like I’m some demon? Peter...,” I’m begging him to tell me now, my voice breaking, “why could you forgive John Ambrose but not me?”

“I can’t do this, Lara Jean."

Slowly, gingerly, I climb back to my side of the car and buckle my seatbelt. Peter doesn’t even bother buckling his. He pulls back out into the narrow road and we drive on in silence. The moment he pulls into our carport, I fling open my door and rush to the chalet. Peter doesn’t follow me in.


	9. The Trippy Ride to La La Land

I cry in my room, big heaving sobs like I haven’t done since Jamie Fox-Pickle got hit by the neighbour’s car, Dad buried him underneath the oldest tree in our yard, and I’d missed it all because I was scrambling to finish my thesis at Columbia. I’m curled up in my bed, fingers twisting the sheets as tears wet the quilt until there’s a small patch of pity. 

Another part of my consciousness seems to be staring at me from afar in a kind of wonder. That part is frankly amazed I lasted from the car to my room, actually. Once upon a time, I'd cry at a drop of a hat — movies, fights, heartfelt compliments and gooey confessions of love...

And death and break-ups. The finality of things. 

So I’ve changed a little since then. Maybe there’s a bit more Margot in me the older I get, or maybe I’ve grown a Teflon layer of New York Tough. I think back on how into vintage things I used to be. How I loved everything to be pretty. I gaze down now at my sky-blue camisole pulled over those dark gray yoga pants. (My white silk pajamas still smell funny.) And then I side-eye my luggage and everything else in it. It’s a bag of Neutral. How on earth did I get so business-practical and… bland? It’s like Margot and I swapped lives — now she’s the one throwing together bright outfits and running after her boys, while I’m the one in charge at work, always with a game plan and the final say-so.

After half a minute, I sit up and remember I’m hungry.

This time, there’s hardly any food left in the pantry or fridge and I’m too over it to bother calling room service. Someone's lit the tiki torches in the back garden, their flickering flames just bright enough that I don't need to turn the kitchen light on. There’s a small quarter round of brie, an opened box of chicken-flavored crackers that’s a little soft, and half a bottle of an Australian Cab Sauv that’s actually quite decent. I bundle them all up to my room, close the door, and eat on my bed while the TV is playing a rerun of _French Kiss_ , the volume turned on low. And because I know I’m dangerously close to falling behind on deadlines, I open my laptop and force myself to look at work. Two of the writers have submitted their redrafts and usually I pounce on those things hungrily. Usually that's all it takes to get my full attention and absorb me for a solid hour.

It takes me three tries before I finally stop reading the same article over and over without really reading it.

Just after Meg Ryan kisses Kevin Kline in her sleep — thus sparking his epiphany about his inconvenient attraction to her brash American adorableness — I doze off myself. Except it’s a sort of half-sleep, half-wakefulness. My eyes are closed and I’m aware I’m drifting off but I’m also vaguely aware of the lights still on in the room. 

My head will not shut up.

Is this all merely nostalgia, I wonder. The fear of missing out? Residual attraction heightened by romantic sunsets, the warm fuzzies of reminiscence, and whispers of what-could-have-been? It’s the last _maybe_ that trips me up the most — am I being sentimental about Peter, or is there something real there after all? 

Can we ever pick things up where we left off, or even begin something new? Do we even really want to?

For a few wild hours back there, I thought I had my answer. I’d looked into Peter's hooded, sexy, soulful eyes and fallen hard all over again. And for a stunning moment, I thought he’d fallen back in love with me too.

But then he’d said those things… and I had said those things… and I’m looking back now at what I did all those years ago before college… and I’m no closer to unpacking why we never made it after all. 

But something’s telling me now that I really ought to try and understand. 

My concave bob lengthens, growing way past my shoulders till it brushes my waist, the waves straightening until my head is adorned in a long, silky-smooth black veil of hair. My red hairband has a print of white schnauzers and pinches my sides, and I’m wearing my navy-blue 1950s-style swing dress with the Peter Pan collar buttoned all the way to the top. 

We’d been stressed about college for weeks. High school was ending, I was leaving for Korea with grandma, Kitty and Margot for a month after graduation, and then I’d decided on UNC at the last minute even though the Chapel Hill campus is almost two hundred miles from UVA and Peter. I hate that I’m anxious when I’m also thrilled about making UNC, I hate that he’s trying to be thrilled for me when he’s nothing but anxious and fighting his disappointment. _Nothing_ feels like it’s going to plan or that we have control. 

It’s like the more obstacles get thrown in the way of our future together, the more distant we get and the less we seem able to trust each other. It’s like deep down, each of us has started to believe that the other's already given up and is secretly moving on. 

Meanwhile, Margot’s Voice of Reason can be heard intoning through the intercom system like a school announcement: _Mom always said, don’t be the girl that starts college with a boyfriend. Don’t be that girl, Lara Jean._

And then I’m in his room in that beach house where there’s always the feel of sand under your feet no matter how much you sweep the floor, and we’re finally all alone. I’m wearing my prettiest bra now, the pale pink one edged in electric blue lace. I check, and I’m even wearing matching panties. But I’m dying inside when he tells me he won’t sleep with me after all. That I’m only doing this to say goodbye. 

Here I am, prepared and willing to offer him the innermost parts of me, and he tells me I’m literally trying to get the fuck and out of here. 

The moment I understand this, self-preservation kicks in hard. But instead of running away this time, my armour forms on the spot. It’s so unlike me; normally I’d run and hide and cry until I need iced spoons to reduce the puffiness of my eyes. But I’m buzzing with the sangria Chris had pumped into me earlier 'to loosen me up’. My head is spinning, and Peter’s looking at me now like I just offered to prostitute myself. 

His mother’s words to me are the first ones out of my mouth. I give him the speech she begged me to give him. I give it to him cheerfully. 

And then I watch as deep, inky hurt seeps into his beautiful hazel eyes and stains them. 

I wake up with a gasp like I’m drowning. My eyes are wet again. 

I'd believed it. Even as I'd heard myself speak, I’d honestly believed in that moment that letting him go was the noblest thing I could do for him. I’d believed it even though it’d killed me to do it — or maybe because it did. After all, doesn't nobility involve self-sacrifice? Don't the greatest romances demand it? 

So no, I correct myself now, that wasn’t just self-preservation acting out. The older I get, the more I realise our motives are never so purely one thing or the other. People are complex that way. 

My mind starts to race, poignant moments of time flickering through the showreel in my head, one memory bringing on another. I remember going to Korea and crying through most of it. I remember returning alone with no Chris or Margot to lean on.

I was so alone. And Peter was good as his word. I’d made him promise to let me go and throw himself into his new life. And so he kept his promise. Lacrosse saved him. 

And then in came John Ambrose.

He’d turned up one day in Cosmic Cantina on Chapel Hill. I’m munching on one of their tasteless burritos and missing Chris deeply, and then John Ambrose McClaren casually comes up to my table, shocking and delighting the hell out of me.

Later, he told me he’d heard — like everyone else had — how Peter and I had broken up. John Ambrose had transferred to UNC with half a mind to see if we could work. If I could still be interested. If he could stand a chance. 

And I had clung to him like he were a tiny rowboat. Like he were some kind of water diviner who could help me survive a desert, even find my way out of it and move on. And when that hadn't work, I’d walked away from John Ambrose too.

And now I’m weeping again, just quietly. How could I have done that to both of them, I wonder now. What had Peter said just now? 

_You gave him a chance right after you told me I couldn’t do exactly that for you._

Peter was right — I’d really socked him in the gut by telling him not to follow me to UNC, only to extend the sceptre to John Ambrose half a year later. The optics of it, I moan now, my face in my hands. The parallel, the significance. In all my grieving then, it'd never once occurred to me how much of a double standard it all was. I just wanted to stop hurting so badly.

How did I not understand this before!

No wonder Peter wanted nothing to do with me, even when he reached New York. Just days after our break up then, I remember telling Trina that I didn’t think Peter would ever forgive me for giving up on us. That he’s charming and chilled and gets along with everybody, but he doesn’t actually let people in easily. I think about his father and how abandoned Peter had felt when he left their family only to start a brand new one down the street. I’d watched Peter cut his own father off, determined never to let his own flesh and blood near enough to hurt him again. 

_I’d left him,_ I realise suddenly, my blood running cold. Just like his father, I’d given Peter up and then let him watch as I started a brand new relationship with the boy down the street...

“Fuck,” I sob into the room. “Fuck, poo, fuckity- _fuck!_ " 

What had I done.

I’m out of my bed before I know what I’m doing, and I don’t even grab my robe when I throw open my door. All the lights in the shared spaces are off and I can’t work out if it’s still early or the middle of the night, or if anyone is back. Peter’s room is on the opposite end of the corridor from mine and I pad past John Ambrose’s room barefoot as quietly as possible. As I scurry past Gen’s room, her door creaks open in my wake and I see that her light is on but her bed is empty. She might still be wandering around somewhere in the house. I have to be quick. 

“Peter…” I call softly, my cheek pressed to his door. I don’t dare knock, just in case someone hears me. It’s a catch-22 because there’s a good chance he can’t hear me either.

But then I sense movement behind his door and before I can change my mind and bolt back to my room, the door swings open and Peter Kavinsky is standing in front of me shirtless and backlit. I can’t see his face, whether it’s glad or sad or mutinous or indifferent. I don’t know what he’s thinking.

“Peter…” My voice sounds so brittle and small. I’m standing at the doorway, unsure if I’m even welcome in. “I need to tell you… I’ve been thinking, and I’m so… I don’t…” I’m actually shivering now. “Could we please talk?”

There’s a horrible pause as he gazes down at me, his eyes impossibly dark. “I don’t want to talk,” he replies flatly as my heart breaks. 

And then he holds my face up to his own and he kisses me.


	10. Silent Knight

There are no words.

But he traces my face with his finger and in that alone, I read many, many things.

We don’t talk. But he sinks his fingers into my hair as he deepens his kisses — and there are many now. They are sometimes slow and patient, sometimes desperate and consuming, each one weakening my knees so they buckle and I melt into him, my body heavy yet floating, my nipples taut and sensitive and straining against the thin cotton of my sky blue camisole.

The walls seem thinner at night and the bed creaks tellingly as he lays me down, as he stretches himself over me with exquisite care. The cool of the bed on my back heightens the heat of his skin against my own.  _ He really is a beautiful man, _ I think. He was always handsome before but when he’s lying here, naked and hard and smooth, he’s beautiful.

And god, I miss him. I think I’ve always missed him. Fresh tears leak from my eyes and he kisses them away, one after the other. When he kisses me again, I can taste the salt on his tongue and that’s more intimate and touching than I can say. 

_ I’m sorry, _ my lips move. There is no sound, but he hears me anyway. I read it in his eyes, which are still laced with hurt.  _ I’m so sorry, _ I say again with my heart and he freezes. 

And then his mouth is everywhere, growing hot and needy and knowing and articulate. His nose, his lips, his tongue seek the shadows — the shell of my ear, the ticklish curve joining shoulder and neck, the hollow of my hip, the valley beyond. With his teeth, he pulls the flimsy cotton aside before he laves my pearl hotly. And when I moan without words, his large hand reaches over to silence me. 

So I come silently. 

We don’t talk for the rest of the night.


	11. Stupid Whispers in the Morning

We both jerk awake with the frenzied pounding on the door.

“I’M GETTING MARRIED TODAY!” Chris screams as she makes her way down the corridor and I sink further into the sheets that are now scented with us, praying hard she doesn’t help herself into the room. Peter and I hold our positions and our breaths, listening as the rattling recedes to the far end before stopping altogether.

“I should go,” I murmur in a low voice, my face still half-covered by his quilt. He’s lying on his side just looking at me, the dark circles under his eyes as incriminating as mine, the morning light tracing his sculpted frame so he seems to glow. I want to stay like this forever between waking and dreaming, aching in places that make me blush. There’s so much to say, but my thoughts are as tangled as my hair.

I don’t know what’s next. I don’t know what I can ask for. I don’t know what this means. 

“I should go,” I say again, still reluctantly. There are things on right now. I’d missed the hen’s night a few weeks back in Virginia, but Chris is holding a cocktail breakfast for ‘just the girls’ this morning, and Trev has something else for the boys.

“We’ll talk,” Peter promises and it disconcerts me how I can no longer read his eyes in the light of the day when I thought I'd felt his heart at night. He seems so closed off now, the space between us in his bed like a yawning chasm. And suddenly, I’m even less sure than before. 

Could this be it? The Fling He Had To Have? He’s finally gotten me out of his system so he can move on? Once the thought crosses my mind, it takes root like a stubborn weed. _That would be poetic justice, wouldn’t it,_ I think bitterly. And maybe this is just my usual paranoia or guilt talking. I think of Gen and their closeness. I think of this mysterious engagement he called off. I think of John Ambrose to my shame. 

And I think of Peter. How tender he was, how _passionate_. How he’d savoured my body like a man given his last supper. How he’d touched every inch of me, as if committing my skin to memory. How we'd wrung out every precious second until we were well and truly spent.

We don’t even kiss before I leave his room, my steps light and furtive as I dash back to my room.

* * *

Our party takes up two long banquet tables in the verandah to hog the best view of the Awana Summit Restaurant, and the cocktail part of Chris’s _Luv All My Bitches Cocktail Breakfast_ is the order of the day. I’m nursing my one flute of champagne and pretending it’s my third, thankful that everyone else plastered around me can no longer count far enough to notice.

It’s an assortment of Chris’s friends through the ages, with just me and Gen from Adler High and then everyone else from Chris's university of life and hard knocks. There are her Applebee friends and a couple of knockouts she collected from the Dominican Republic; the handful of community college misfits before she transferred to Virginia Tech; the Virginia Tech misfits before she dropped out altogether; the Australians from her cherry-picking stint; the Thais from Koh Samui who don’t speak much English; the Irish vet from the Ghanaian elephant sanctuary; one of her lecturers from Open University Online; and two Malaysian social workers from the orphanage Chris currently teaches in. 

Chris’s mum, at least, looks more or less at peace with it all, even happy. She’s off on one end of the table with a few other relatives I don’t know. Chris and Gen’s grandmother can’t hear much of anything, but she’s wolfing down strawberries and pancakes like she still has all her teeth. 

I’m stuck on the other end with Gen who’s not talking to me but she’s mercifully not being pissy to me either. The circles under her eyes look almost worse than mine do, and I’m amazed that Chris is this peppy in the morning if they all had such a late night after rehearsal yesterday. _Love must be her Red Bull,_ I surmise, although knowing Chris, maybe she’s just hopped up on good ol’ Speed this morning.

Gen, meanwhile, has a faraway look in her eyes that softens her features and makes her look almost wistful and sweet. And it _is_ an exceptional view before us, the morning light painting the sky in shades of pastel so it looks like a watercolour.

I wish Peter and I had caught the sunrise this morning. 

“You bored?” Chris accuses behind me suddenly, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in her hand. “That’s ‘cos you’re hardly drinking anything. And no buts — I _know_ you, Lara Jean. That is your first and only glass, you hopeless lightweight. Drink!” She tops up my flute amidst my protests. “And stop complaining,” she warns me, gesturing to the verandah and back at the restaurant behind us. “I kept this civilised just for you. I could have had all this at a strip club instead, and dragged out some Chippendales.”

“In Malaysia? For breakfast?” I giggle. "I seriously doubt that.” 

“Now you coming with me or what?” She smiles down at me and it’s a devilish grin that really takes me back to when it was just her and me against all the mainstream, popular kids of the world. She flicks her ombre lavender hair. 

“Blowing off your own bridal breakfast booze-up, Chris?” I tease.

She raises an eyebrow and grins. “Would you expect anything less?"

* * *

“I always thought you’d marry before me, Lara Jean.”

We’d meandered down the mountain, past even our own chalet. Chris had traded her near-empty Veuve Clicquot for a new Moët on the way out the door and she hands me the bottle now, watching like a hawk as I take a proper swig. Thank goodness I hadn’t actually drunk anything until now.

“Honestly?” I reply, feeling the rosé warming me up pleasantly, “I never thought you’d marry at all. But Chris, I’m _so happy_ you’re so happy. You deserve every good thing.” I look at my oldest, most constant friend in the world — my sister from another mother with her purple hair, her blue language, her filthy thoughts, and a loyal heart that’s eighteen-carat gold. Chris and I hug fierce and tight before she playfully pushes me off her. 

“Dude,” she warns with a smirk that’s affectionate, “that’s way corny.”

We find a wooden bench to settle on and watch in companionable silence as the sun creeps up the valley. It feels like I’m running out of time, like this is the moment for grand speeches even though we’ve never made them to each other before. But she's starting a new chapter, and suddenly the page in the book of life we’d both been standing on is turning over — me on one side, she on the other. I can’t help but feel melancholy, like I’m being left behind. 

And then I think about the menagerie of women still having cocktails back at the restaurant, how a wandering alley cat like Chris ended up collecting and maintaining strong friendships along the way. I think about Trev, John Ambrose, Peter and even Gen — the original treehouse gang. 

No, I remind myself. I’d been the one doing the leaving. I just wonder now if there’s space left for me to slot back in. Or if it’s too late.

“Sorry Gen pipped you for the post of Maid of Honor,” Chris mumbles now in that uncanny way she does when it feels like she’s just read my thoughts. 

“Forget it,” I mumble back sheepishly. “It’s your wedding. I’m just glad to be part of it.” 

“It’s my grandma,” Chris explains, before sighing heavily. “ _Our_ grandma, me and Gen. We’d be lucky if she makes it to the end of the year, frankly. Her oncologist has confirmed she doesn’t have much time.”

I reach over and squeeze Chris’s hand, some pieces of the puzzle falling into place. Chris completes the puzzle even more. 

“She’s always wanted both of us to get along, right? Her two only granddaughters? And then when she heard I proposed to Trev, she decided — since she was dying and all — to give me my share of the inheritance now instead of waiting around until she’s dead. That’s how we ended up here, in this crazy luxe resort. I figure I’d give Grandma a party to remember. And because Gen has always been her favorite, I figured she’d love it if I made Gen my Maid of Honor too.”

“Whoa, Chris!” I tease, though I’m secretly quite moved. “Who knew you’re such a softie after all!”

Chris snorts, but her smile is lopsided. “Well… I figured… I mean, Gen’s a bitch, right? She’s always been a bitch. But then again, so am I and really, in the end? We’re family.” She looks over at me. “So she’s my bitch now. And honestly, this whole thing has brought us weirdly closer together. She’s actually been quite helpful. Even an alright listener. And I’ve seen her put up with a lot of shit over the years. Did you know she just got divorced? Fuckwit walked out, like, eight months after her wedding. That was a real low point."

I did not know that. I didn’t even know she got married and for a wild moment, I wonder if it was to Peter, but then I shake my head. No, they wouldn’t be so friendly now if that were the case. Surely. 

“Gen’s mellowed, I think. The last few years? Really shook her up. And she loves grandma to death, so I think she’s finally figured out I’m not the devil after all. We’ve called a sort of truce.” 

“I’m glad,” I reply, but it’s still a lot to take in. Gen and Chris had been catfighting for as long as I’ve known them, and to suddenly picture them being civil, even friendly… I feel sorry about the divorce, but I don’t know that I’m quite ready to change my mind about Gen yet, even if Chris is starting to. The years of swiping at each other may be water under the bridge for them now, but some things between Gen and I still feel frozen in time. 

“So yeah,” Chris shakes her head suddenly, as if shaking herself out of a funk. “Thanks for coming all this way, only to be Number Two. Especially when you have to turn around and leave tomorrow afternoon. By the way, are you going to bone Peter before you leave? Or do you think you guys will catch up in New York instead and bone there?”

A spray of rosé brut shoots from my mouth. Chris laughs her head off but I can tell she still wants to know.

“Oh my god, Chris!”

“Oh don’t pretend to clutch your pearls with me!” Chris rolls her eyes dramatically. “All that canoodling on the couch? It was like fucking déja vù.” She flicks on her phone and scrolls through her image gallery until she finds what she’s after. “Look at the both of you!” she scolds. "It’s practically your old phone wallpaper! Did you two even graduate high school?!”

“It was the jet lag, okay!” I protest, but there I am once again — napping serenely on the couch, Peter’s arms around me. I resist the urge to ask for that photo. I am not sixteen.

“It’s not just the cutesy on the couch, it’s all the eye-fuckery too,” Chris casually shoots off the snapshot to my phone without my asking and this is why I simultaneously love and fear her. “Both of you aren’t even subtle. I can tell he wants to, you know. Do a little lovin’.” She waggles her eyebrows suggestively. "After he dropped you off at the chalet and I got your message about both of you not coming back, we were all sure that you were going upstairs to do the nasty.”

I take another swig from the bottle so I don’t meet Chris’s eagle eye. 

"But then he came back alone to the bar and joined us. And the look on his face… We weren’t sure if you guys had a fight, or if he just didn’t get lucky with you because of your usual obtuseness when it comes to reading sex signals—” 

“—Hey!”

“But he started knocking back a couple of glasses, and some of the Applebees and Australians got really flirty with him…”

I roll my eyes and decide _never_ to eat at Applebee's ever again. And screw the Australians too. And neither of those are overreactions, I’ll be sure to tell Chris if she asks. 

“And he played along for a bit, but after a while he just sat in a corner and brooded over a pint before he paid up and took off. Maybe with Gen?”

“What?” I ask faintly. 

“Well, she disappeared last night without saying anything. We just put the two together.”

The sky starts spinning, or maybe it’s the alcohol on a too-empty stomach and hardly any sleep. In hindsight, I should have downed more pancakes at breakfast to soak it all up. But just the thought of eating anything makes me sick now.

Hot tubs and déjà vu, I could _smack_ myself. All I can see is the way Gen ran to him yesterday morning when she saw him in the kitchen, and that puppy-dog look on his face when he asked her how she’s been. _God — what if that beautiful dick had back-to-backed me with Gen?_ My heart feels like it could break out of my chest now, it’s beating so fast. My neck, my face feel unseasonably warm...

“Hey,” Chris nudges me, comprehension dawning on her face. “Gen's not muscling in on your man, not anymore. That’s ancient history, LJ. They’re just friends now — really. You don’t know the half of it with Gen, but I can tell you she and Kavinsky are not boning. They were probably off talking somewhere, maybe even about you!” Chris nudges me again, an encouraging smirk on her face. "When Peter gets into a funk sometimes, Gen’s good at getting him to talk.”

But somehow, that only makes me feel even worse. Because after a long night of not-talking with me, why does Peter still run to Gen to purge the demons haunting his heart and soul?


	12. To Have and To Hold, Fudge and Make Up

“Ow…” 

One of the Hair People makes a very audible _tsk_ , and it’s not like I mean for my eyes to water and ruin my mascara when they’re trying to make me pretty… but it honestly feels like I’ve lost a quarter of my hair by its roots. Hair Person is pressing my forehead so hard now, it feels like I'm in a rugby hold. But the knots are slowly, and finally, losing the battle after my all-night tumble into Peter Kavinsky’s bed with half a can of Extra Firm Hold lacquer still in my hair. 

Gen, of course, looks stunning beside me. Her Hair Person had finished at least half an hour ago, crooning constantly about ‘texture’ and ‘proper hair routine’ and ‘quality conditioners’ and ‘foresight’. Her long silky tresses are now teasing and curling down her back, the half-crown braided up-do circling her head like a messy halo. Somehow she manages to look like she’d done it all up herself as an afterthought, tendrils of gold-spun highlights framing her face — now made elfin by shapeshifting make-up so she looks like a woodland nymph in a skintight dress made out of sex-in-the-forest gossamer. 

“You clean up alright, Chrissy,” Gen remarks without sarcasm or sass and it’s so surprising to me, I jerk to my right to take a look for myself. And she’s right — Chris looks _radiant,_ despite having drunk like a fish all breakfast. Lavender hair cascades down her back in effortless waves, cloaking her thin-strapped dangerously-low beaded art deco top worn over a full and very lacy sheer skirt in light champagne. Chris had, indeed, cleaned up and looks every bit the Boho bride rather than a hobo one.

All that water she’d chugged down had obviously paid off as well; she’d wisely dried off during the afternoon, me firmly by her side in her bed, stroking her purple hair until I fell asleep myself. Peter had not texted me a single time.

I haven’t seen him all day. Trev and the boys had apparently gone hiking and then spent all afternoon in Gabe’s two-bedroom hut playing poker and smoking cigars. A rather tame afternoon compared to the women’s, actually. 

And I could've called Peter, of course. I could have found a sliver of time to sneak away, especially when Chris was sleeping her cocktails off. I could have texted him, and he’d have come running. Maybe walking. Point is, I _know_ he would have made the time.

But then what if we talked and it all went horribly wrong _again?_ And I can’t do that to Chris and Trevor either, not mere hours away from their big I Do. No, it’s best to keep a holding pattern and wait until the official festivities are done and there’s no chance of ruining their moment. This day is rightfully theirs.

Besides… I need to figure out what it is _I_ want, to begin with. And honestly, all possibilities are quietly freaking me out in various strengths and ways.

Because what if what I want is a fairytale that is only real in my head? And what if there’s no going back, because we’re no longer the people we used to be? It’s barely been two days. Two days ago, I’d arrived in Malaysia blithely ignorant of the fact that Peter Kavinsky would be here. And in less time than it takes to croon _Only Fools Rush In_ , I’m in his car, in his arms, in his bed.

It’s like seventeen years haven't passed and yet all we can talk about is the past. And what if we're just done? What if last night should have been our graceful swan song? 

Or what if this is all just the beginning? Worst of all — what if this becomes the toxic continuation of the love story so bittersweet, it subliminally sabotaged every other romantic relationship I’d had since college? Can I even trust myself? I’d broken his heart so many times, after all. 

I flick my phone on now and just stare at our message thread, completely lost for words. I am paid handsomely for my words! We had started out long ago all because of my infamous words. And yet I don’t even know how to begin now.

But then Peter comes on suddenly, the “. . .” waving gently as he weaves his own message twelve huts down from our wedding prep room in the hotel. I hold my breath as the ellipsis ripples for ten more seconds. I wait, but his message doesn't come.

* * *

The staff at Awana Highlands Resort, as it turns out, really know how to deliver a dreamy wedding. Somehow over the day, Idayu had managed to transform the ballroom into a natural extension of the scenery beyond the glass wall. Decorative teardrop bulbs drop like rain from the high ceiling, creeping vines fully flowered wrap and curl around structural pillars, and delicate arrangements of wildflowers delineate the aisle and adorn the neat rows of seats. Heavy champagne-coloured drapes wrapped loosely around a simple wooden arch herald the entry of our bridal procession. It’s, frankly, amazing.

The ballroom’s packed but I can’t see any of the groomsmen up front. And all I want to do is just catch a glimpse of Peter, because maybe… maybe I can tell if we’re still alright.

 _“Awak kelihatan sangat cantik!”_ Idayu squeals the moment three of us enter the waiting wing. “You all are _gorgeous!_ ” she repeats, clapping her hands. The flower girls and page boy are already here, dutifully holding hands as they wait for us. Chris’s dad, Phil, comes forward and gives her a tight hug. And then he turns and gives me a hug, his ruddy face beaming.

"You look beautiful, Lara Jean!" he smiles, and pats me on the shoulder. And I have to take his word for it — my hair had taken so long, I’d scarcely had the chance to take a good look at myself in the preparation room. My compact mirror had been tiny, and Gen had pretty much hogged the full-length one the entire time, only stepping aside grudgingly so Chris can check herself out — being the bride and all. But I've just spied a thin column of mirrored glass in the waiting wing and I sidle over discreetly now, suddenly nervous about what I’d find looking back at me.

A strangely familiar sylph greets me in the mirror, her straight ebony hair twisted and braided in small sections and pulled back into a gilded leaf barrette, the rest of it undulating in waves and curls and tendrils that frame and caress her heart-shaped face. My waist looks tiny and fragile in this dress, the boat neckline revealing the long curve between neck and shoulder, the peekaboo lace teasing, the slit of the lilac skirt tantalising as I walk. They’d made it so my eyes are smokey purple, my lashes are flirtatious, and my lips moist and nude and inviting. I look like a nymph and I want to laugh-scream just a little. I’ve never looked like this before. I’ve never been… sexy.

My pocket pings, and it's Gen's phone. She grabs it from me greedily when she sees that it's a message from Trevor and she scans it for a second before she looks up at Gen. There's a sly look on her face.

 _"~I know what you did last night~"_ Chris starts to tease in sing-song, waving her finger in her cousin's face. _"~Someone got some dick at last!~"_

My face pales while Gen's visibly reddens.

"You've been keeping secrets!" accuses Chris before she flashes her phone in Gen's face triumphantly. I'm not quick enough to catch the image on screen, but Gen's scandalised gasp only worsens my trepidation.

"Where the hell did you get that!" she snaps while Chris starts giggling maniacally. "That's private!"

"When the hell did this start!" Chris demands to know now. "Don't tell me — _here?_ " Chris gestures vaguely about her. "You mean all this time, the two of you little lustbirds have been sneaking around to hook up?" Chris almost looks admiring. "Well Cuz, I honestly didn't see that coming."

"Give that to me!" I cry, lunging straight for the phone. Chris fumbles in surprise and her cell slips from her grasp, but I manage to catch it before it hits the floor. Frantically, I swipe the screen so I can get in, my hands trembling so hard that it takes me several goes before it works. And then I'm staring at a full screen of Gen, an incriminating pile of yesterday's clothes by the side of a pool, her pale, wet, _perfect_ body fused in a heated embrace with a very naked man.

My heart stutters. I know that man.

 _"John Ambrose?"_ I choke out, staring at Gen. "You're having sex with _John Ambrose?!"_

"Ladies..." hesitates Idayu, darting her eyes nervously at the cherubic flower girls. "We're about to start..."

"Hell no!" Chris's eyes are alight. "It's customary for the bride to be late anyway. And Trev will want to hear this, so... spill!"

"It's none of your goddamn business," glowers Gen, but I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around this. _It's John! It's not Peter!_ Something tight in my chest suddenly uncoils and a flood of Happy runs through me. _He didn't back-to-back us... it was all in my head..._ And then slowly, other clues start to coalesce and slot into place. Like Gen's empty room last night when I'd passed it on my way to Peter's. Like how John Ambrose had seemed so certain that nothing was actually happening between Gen and Peter.

_It's not what it looks like, Lara Jean..._

But it's _Gen —_ jealous, manipulative, grudge-from-Middle-school-holding Gen. Gen, who used to string boys along just because it made her feel like a queen. Who was always sure to keep a guy on his jealous toes. And I think about John Ambrose, and I think of how sweetly he loves, and I feel suddenly sick with worry for him.

"But what about Peter?" I demand now. "How do you think it makes John Ambrose feel when you're off whispering to Peter like that?"

"John feels fine!" Gen replies, looking confused for a second before her eyes narrow in comprehension. "You mean how do _you_ feel, Lara Jean," she corrects me, her gaze shrewd. "Really, Little J, you need to get over your obsession with me and Peter."

"LJ..." mumbles Chris now, her hand on my arm. "Hey... I'm serious. You're not reading this right."

"Don't you think we'd be together by now if there was still something romantic between us?" Gen points out, clearly exasperated. "I swear, you guys have been apart for god knows how long and then the moment you're in the same room, it's like you're both right back where you started — fucking high school!" 

"But... you're always talking..." I reach. "And you seem so... _furious_ when you see how we're getting closer again!"

"Can you blame me?" Gen shoots back. "Understand, LJ — I was there at the last fallout. And all the fallouts after that," she adds meaningfully. "Plus, I'm still pissed with Peter for breaking off his engagement with my friend Anthea, even though I could have seen that coming a mile away. It was a bad idea to start with — he should never have forced himself to settle, and she should never have encouraged him."

Gen gives herself a little shake as if that is all beside the point. "More than that, Little J — I still don't trust you. And if I didn't think it's hopeless keeping both of you apart, I'd certainly try. Because dammit, Lara Jean, if you dump Peter one more time, I swear I'll take you down myself!" 

And bizarrely, I understand her. I really do. Because I don't trust her either and just the thought of her with John Ambrose earlier made me scratchy and anxious for his safety. Even though I know full well how hypocritical that is, coming from me. 

"Look," Gen levels with me now, her shoulders sagging a little as if suddenly tired. "No one — _no one_ — in Peter's history with women affects him the way you do."

"Oh, I don't know," I give a strange little laugh that's mirthless. "We've had some moments, some _wonderful_ moments... And yet we’ve never talked about how things could work between us. While you two..." I throw my hands in the air helplessly. "Why does Peter always spill to you, Gen!"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Chris groans. "The stakes aren't high with Gen, that's why! They don’t matter! You idiot girl, he's terrified of saying the wrong thing and losing _you!_ Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" Chris shakes me like a doll. "For a smart cookie, you can be so incredibly dense sometimes, LJ! It's so obvious all he talks about with Gen is you. The rest of us are, frankly, sick of it. So can you both please just fucking _do something_ _about it_ before we all toss you off this mountain?!"

"He's scared," Gen explains and she's dead serious. There's no scorn in her tone now, there's no eye-rolling. She looks straight at me as if she's trying to burn into my brain the most important answer to an exam question I haven't sat for yet. "I know something big happened last night between you two, but Peter's hesitating. Because once he decides he's letting you back in again, this is it. It's going to be for keeps. And he's almost there, LJ. I can feel it. And I don't think I need to tell you that very few people in the world get a do-over like this." 

"Well!" Idayu claps her hands. "This is very good advice," she approves briskly, checking her watch. "Now... may I start the wedding, please?" 

"Are we all cool?" Chris eyes Gen and I, and I nod now. I think I am. I stick my hand out solemnly and after a moment's hesitation, Gen takes my proffered hand and we shake on it.

"Don't fuck this up," she warns me, her grip on my hand vice-like. 

“Well, this is it!” Chris whoops and she pulls me into a hug that’s fierce and warm. She pulls Gen in with her other arm, and then all three of us are hugging and it strangely doesn’t feel too weird anymore. 

“No crying,” Chris warns me and I huff sheepishly. “But if you do, I’ve already tested this eyeliner and it’s industrial-grade, dude. Like, it’s so smudge-proof, I’m almost scared it’s actually a tattoo."

And then she drops her little bombshell.

“Listen,” Chris announces to us all nonchalantly. “Before I forget — change of plan, guys: I’m surprising Trev and so I’m getting the band to play our FAMU song for the wedding march.”

“Fa-moo…?”

“Yes, FAMU.” She frowns. “Don’t tell me you don’t… Come on! _FAMU?!_ F-A-M-U?” Chris rolls her eyes at all our puzzled faces, including Gen’s. “Fu——udge…,” Chris amends, side-eyeing the three children, “... and make up?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” mutters Gen. 

“Don’t worry y’all — pace and beat’s the same,” continues the bride blithely. “Just walk like you practiced, it’ll work itself out.” She winks at all of us down the line and pats Idayu reassuringly on the arm. 

Idayu visibly whitens, but it’s too late now. 

_It'll be fine,_ I tell myself. _Just listen carefully to the music and follow my heart._

We can hear the ballroom hush to a low murmur as the MC announces that the bride will be entering soon. And then when it’s finally quiet, the guitar strains start.

I watch the flower girls wander down the aisle first, their broken petals of wildflowers scattered in their wake. The page boy follows, just a little too fast until he slows himself down. And then Idayu taps me on my elbow.

“Your turn,” she smiles.

There are, perhaps, a maximum of eighty people in the room but the aisle feels like it goes on forever and my heart is beating a million miles. Darrell and his wife are grinning at me encouragingly, Gabe and Keisha too and I smile at them until I turn back to the front and fix my eyes ahead. 

Peter’s gaze fits into mine immediately and a shiver runs through me.

 _Please don't scar this young heart,_ croons the Indie chick in the corner with the band.

And I can't promise that, I realise. If there's anything these last two days have taught me, it's that I'm still prone to defending my heart by dropping and running when I sense a dagger is near. But this is _Peter_. And he's the man I never want to hurt again, the one soul I ache to trust. 

_Just take my hand,_ she sings. And then the gentle chorus swells just like all good fairy tales would.

_I was made for loving you  
_ _Even though we may be hopeless hearts just passing through  
_ _Every bone screaming, 'I don’t know what we should do!'’  
_ _All I know is, darling, I was made for loving you._

I can tell Peter's listening just as hard as I am to the words. His Adam's apple bobs tellingly.

_I’ve been waiting all my life._

By the time I’m at the front and standing where I should, I’m gone. I’m crying. I don’t know if they used Chris’s smudge-proof tattoo eyeliner on my smoking new come-hither eyes. I don't know if the mascara’s waterproof. The worst of it is how I have to turn and face the rest of the ballroom. I try grinding on my toe with my heel, hoping that pain could distract me from all this blubber. But the harder I try to control myself, the more the tears come. 

Chris’s mum notices me and then suddenly, she’s fishing around her handbag for tissues. _Noooo!_ I try to tell her through my puffy eyes. _No wait, Mrs T! Don’t cry! No no no no no, I’m not crying about Chris!_ I'm shaking my head at her as frantically and as subtly as I can. _Stop crying!_ I'm begging now. _Be happy!_

But then Chris’s grandma passes her a spare hanky, and then blows her nose noisily into her own. And that's the ball game, really. For as soon as Chris's ninety-year-old grandma starts to cry, everyone catches the feels. Soon the row behind her starts, then the row across the aisle. Darrell’s wife gets going in the far corner, which gets Keisha going. Then both the Dominican models, probably still drunk, start properly bawling. 

By the time Chris reaches the front and Phil hands her over to Trevor, the room is inch-deep in running mascara and it’s obvious enough that Chris leans over to Trev. _“What The Fuck?!”_ she hisses in front of the celebrant, and Trev just shrugs. 

“You look real pretty?”

And just when it can’t get any more confusing, I glance over at Peter and that’s when I know that he _knows,_ that he sees me, that he’s never taken his eyes off me. And he’s heartbreakingly handsome like this, his gaze steady, his mouth serious and unsmiling. And I don’t know anymore, I just don’t know — will he even want a mess like me? 

And then he winks at me. It is enough. Warmth and relief flood through my body like a dam broken and beautiful calm washes over me. I want to laugh. I'm suddenly able to breathe again, finally able to stop the tears. I don’t know what that wink means, exactly. But right now, I don’t quite care. I just know that Peter Kavinsky is still here and present with me for the moment. And maybe, _just maybe,_ we’ll be alright.


	13. At Last

He hadn’t noticed when I slipped out to the ladies', but I see him the moment I re-enter the room, my eyes locking on his familiar form like some homing beacon. Peter Kavinsky is slouched down in his chair, his manner laid back and content, a half-glass of beer in his hand. But even from here I can see how his eyes rove the room like searchlights, and there’s no one else on stage at the bridal table now — everyone else, even John Ambrose and Gen, had followed the newlyweds’ lead and poured onto the dance floor like uncorked champagne. 

I stay in his blind spot just long enough to slip behind him but the moment I place my hand on his shoulder and he turns, butterflies take off in the pit of my stomach. I swallow and my smile is almost too bright when I breathe,

“Hi.”

“Hi,” he echoes softly. Expectantly.

I shrug like it’s nothing, but the words almost trip over themselves when I go on to say, “Peter Kavinsky... may I… please have this dance?” 

I stick my hand out stiffly like a child and he grins up at me as he takes it, standing up in one fluid motion so he suddenly towers over me, even in my heeled boots. He lets me lead him down to the dance floor, LANY’s Pink Skies just kicking up the chorus as he suddenly twirls me out and then back in again — like he’s done this forever. 

_Get ya under pink skies  
_ _I know exactly where we should go..._

“Is it just me, or does this feel a little like prom,” Peter observes loud enough for me to hear, looking around us at everyone else jostling for space on the floor. And LANY definitely takes me back, their mellow, dream-synth beats sweeping my feels into the back of a Corvette so I'm suddenly young and eighteen and coasting down Malibu with the roof down even though I’ve never been. 

And I should say something just as flirty and light, something bright and breezy and carelessly nostalgic. But I’ve been waiting far too long to let beachy Indie pop get in the way of what I really, _really_ need to say.

“I never slept with John Ambrose!”

“What?” 

“I said — I never slept with John Ambrose!”

Peter shakes his head. “I still can’t hear you!” I read his lips. So I slip my hand around the back of his neck and pull him gently down so my lips brush against his ear. 

“I said… I love you.”

He stills instantly. And my heart is thrumming against my chest like a little bird in a cage. I wet my lips, unsure what else to let out next — only that I need to tell him everything, _everything_ now. 

“I… I think I must have never stopped loving you, somehow. Like, every man in my life since has had to compete with you, whether they knew it or not. I don’t know that I understood that myself, looking back, you know? But it was never fair. I t-thought I was being introverted, or career-focused, or too—“

“Idealistic,” Peter finished. We’ve stopped dancing altogether now. “Like you had a secret list you were trying to tick off and never could.”

“Yes!” 

“Like you were always holding out, even though you’d started to forget what you were holding out for.”

And all I can do is nod, a predictably treacherous lump forming in my throat again. 

“Lara Jean,” Peter Kavinsky stares down at me, his hand cradling my cheek. “Three months ago I almost married a woman I now realise I could only have loved with a small fraction of myself… because the rest of me had always belonged to you.”

“Oh damn…” I marvel as my tears finally slip down and wet my lips. “That’s a really good one, Kavinsky.”

“Why thank you,” he grins back shyly, his eyes dark and soft and even a little shiny. “I’ve been working on that line for a while, you know.”

“You have?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I never should have let John Ambrose be my rebound boy,” I lament. “And I’m so _dense_ . Like, I’m book-smart? But so incredibly love-stupid, you know? It wasn’t even until you told me yesterday how you felt that I understood how hurtful it was to break up with you and then let John Ambrose cross state lines to do _exactly_ what I just forbade you to do!”

“You are definitely a mess of contradictions, Covey.”

“Do you think you can forgive me one day?”

“Already done.”

And somehow, _that’s_ the thing that finally undoes me. I burst into tears noisily, my hands covering my face as a tidal wave of relief crashes through my body before ebbing a little in mortification.

“Whoa… hey…” I hear him say, and then my face is pressed gently against his chest so I’m tucked under his chin and his arms are wrapped tight around me. He starts to croon. It sounds nothing like the music blaring overhead but the rumble of him under my cheek is like a lullaby.

Oh God, how I _love_ this man.

“I’m so, so sorry I waited this long,” he murmurs into my ear before he tips my chin up so he can gaze straight into me. And then Peter Kavinsky, the boy I once sent away because I loved him so hard it scared me, drops his beautiful head and kisses me.

And I’m home. I’ll never run away again.

Vaguely, eventually, I hear the sound of whoops and whistles steal through the music but it’s only when Jamiroquai abruptly changes to slow, sultry, soulful Etta James that I realise what’s going on.

 _At laaaaaast…  
_ _My love has come along  
_ _My lonely days are over and life is but a song..._

Peter and I finally break the kiss and look over together at the DJ to find Trev and Chris standing beside her, clinging to each other and grinning their heads off. Chris yowls and then wolf-whistles sharply as Trev hollers, “Fucking took you long enough, Kavinsky!” Gabe and Darrell are laughing, and even the Australians raise their glasses at us from a nearby table and I think, maybe I'll visit Australia someday after all. They seem like such friendly people.

* * *

“Stop checking yourself out!”

“I’m not checking myself out, I’m staring at you…” Peter husks into my ear before he nuzzles behind it, inducing a small burst of giggles as my reflection writhes away from his. The sliding panels of the wardrobe at the foot of my bed are floor-to-ceiling mirror — which, I imagine, is a nightmare for keeping fingerprints off, but utterly ideal for beautiful, slightly vain men like my _lover_ , Peter Kavinsky. 

Somehow through the night, we’d ended up collapsing across the breadth of the bed only to wake up this morning together, him wrapped like a protective shell from behind me, his leg hooked over mine underneath the covers, his muscly arm draped possessively over my bare breasts. He’d clipped his chin into the hollow of my collarbone just so he can check out his own bed head this morning in my wardrobe mirror. 

“We look great as a couple,” he smirks confidently. “Look at us. We’re a _smokin’_ hot power couple.” His smugness and elation is actually endearing and I have to hide a smile. And so I twist around and kiss him instead. I kiss him like I love him with all my heart, because I do.

“Ignore it!” he groans as soon as my phone goes off, but I recognize the ringtone immediately and I shoot him an apologetic glance crossed with a warning look and raise my finger to my lips before I scramble back up to the headboard. I’m sure to flick my hair in place and bury myself deep under the covers before I swipe the call on.

“Hiiiii!” I beam at Margot.

“Hi — are you still in bed!” accuses my older sister, true to form.

“Gogo… it’s friggin’ seven A.M. _Of course_ I’m still in bed.” 

She harrumphs as a noncommittal reply and I know she’s judging me already but I can’t get mad at her. I can’t get mad at anyone this morning — or ever. I’m just so darn _happy_.

“How was the wedding?” she asks with a yawn. It must be just touching midnight for her now.

“It was great, actually.” I answer truthfully. “Chris looked so beautiful and it actually ended up being an elegant and deeply, _deeply_ romantic affair. Oh Margot, you should see this place!” I enthuse. “Like, each of their huts is set into the mountainside like gems, and the view — oh the view!” I look over at Peter now and he’s suddenly shaking his head. And then I realize what I’d just done.

“Show me!” Margot replies, looking interested. “I’m so envious. We’ve been having miserable weather here and we’re stuck at home. Flick your phone around! Let me see your room.”

“Uh… now?” I ask, burying myself deeper under the covers. 

“Yes, now!” replies my sister. “You’re flying out today, aren’t you? If not now, when?”

“But… I’m not exactly ready?” Peter starts emphatically shaking his head again.

“Not ready? Lara Jean, I’ve put up with plenty of your messes. And I live with four boys and they’re happy little piglets. I don’t care about stray underwear. Just show me!” 

I flash my phone at the balcony. “It’s gorgeous!” I announce. 

“I can’t see anything,” Margot complains. “Get out of your bed, you little sloth!”

“But I don’t want to get out of bed!” I whine in my best little-sister voice. 

“Alright fine — give me your best phone tour, then.”

Peter’s eyes widen and then quick as a flash, he rolls off the bed just as I pan my camera across to where he was just lying. There’s a muffled _whump_ and a soft groan, and Margot’s on it like a dermatologist on a rash.

“What’s that?”

“Hmm?”

“That sound. Like a thump. It sounded so close.”

“I don’t know. Maybe a pillow fell off the bed. They give you so many in these fancy places.”

“No,” she insists. “It sounded heavier. And actually, I could have sworn it sounded like a person.”

“What? Nooooo…” But I have to bite my lip now as a hysterical giggle starts to bubble up. And Peter’s snuck back into the bed now, burrowing his way up to me from under the covers. When he reaches my legs, he holds them down so I can’t kick him away and then he starts kissing his way up, his morning stubble grazing the soft, pale inside of my right thigh. I gasp jerkily.

“What?”

“Nothing!” I squeak and then look over to glare at him, but of course I can’t see him. I can _feel_ him, though. I can feel him plenty.

“Lara Jean,” Margot’s eyes are starting to narrow in suspicion. “What’s going on.”

“Not much,” I lie. But then he nibbles in a spot he discovered late last night that makes me want to curl like a prawn in pleasure. I throw my head back into the pillow, just a little, and stifle a moan instead. He’s terrible! I can just make out the shape of his head under the covers and now I'm frantically pushing him back down with my free hand. 

“There’s something going on…” Margot insists and then her eyes widen. “Lara Jean, are you _nekkid?_ ”

“Wha?”

“I can see your shoulders! You haven’t got anything on!”

“Oh… that!” I bluster, but now I can’t think, can I. “Hang on!” I tell her, before I throw the phone face down on the bed and yank away the layers to reveal a very unrepentant Peter Kavinsky.

“What are you doing!” I hiss.

“Hiding,” he mouths back with a huge grin.

“There’s someone in the room with you, isn’t there!” Margot’s voice rings out clear as a bell from my phone. “Oh my god, there is!” she groans as understanding sinks in. I yank the phone up.

“Gogo, I can expl—“

“Lara Jean, why the hell didn’t you warn me!”

“I’m sorry! I just didn’t… you caught me off guard, that’s all!”

“And at a _wedding?!_ ” Margot looks both outraged and strangely envious. “This is so unlike you. I mean, I just didn’t even think when I called that you’d be… you know…” Words are starting to fail my older sister, which is really saying something. 

“Before I go — are you being safe, Lara Jean?” Margot raises her voice to Scary Sister and barks into the phone. “Hey you, whoever you are — my sister is not in the habit of sleeping with strangers—“

“Gogo!”

"So the fact that she picked you says something about your character at least. But if you were to ever, _ever_ treat my sister like less than the woman of excellence she is who deserves the very best the sordid world of men has to offer, I will personally _get_ over there—”

“Margot, it’s alright!” I cut in. “It’s alright. And it’s not… it’s not a stranger.”

I pull the covers down a little further and make room for Peter as he crawls up and out from under and settles beside me, shirtless and tousle-haired. 

“It’s… it’s Peter Kavinsky.” I turn the phone a little so we both share the screen.

“Hi Margot,” Peter greets solemnly. “We haven’t met in person before, but it is a pleasure to meet you finally.”

Words have finally failed Margot Song Covey (she never did take on Ravi’s name). She blinks back at us for a full two seconds before she remembers herself.

“Hello Peter,” she replies primly. And then she eyes me beadily. “Later,” she says as a warning and promise, and then blows me a kiss before she hangs up abruptly. 

“Kitty will take the news better,” Peter guesses after we both stare at the blank screen. 

“It’s definitely out of the bag now,” I sigh heavily, a little self-conscious. “Are you alright with that?”

“If it means I win the title of Best Sordid Man in the World, I’m more than alright with that, Lara Jean.” And he cuts off my laughter with a kiss so deep, I’m left breathless.

There's so much to look forward to now. So much _more_. I've always counted myself a blessed person but now I'm just giddy with the prospect of this new full-bodied abundance. It's like growing up on grape soda and then discovering red, red wine. 

“So how will it work?” I want to know, snuggling into him and breathing in deep. I want to bottle up this smell and wear him forever. 

“Well…” Peter muses and I can hear the smile in that word alone. “Let’s see… my office is on Nine-Fifty and Third—”

“— that’s not too far from me!”

“So I’m thinking at least lunch once a week and dinner thrice.”

“Including weekends?”

“Weekends count differently,” Peter smiles slyly. “Weekends include breakfast.”

“Do they, now?” I tease, although my hips are already turning liquid. 

“They do,” Peter replies glibly, leaning over to my bedside table where he opens the drawer and fishes out a blank hotel notepad and pen. 

“What are you doing?” I ask suspiciously.

“I’m a lawyer,” he drawls. “We tend to write these things down.” And maddeningly, he refuses to let me peek until I give up for now. 

“Your place or mine?” I wonder aloud instead.

“Yours,” Peter decides. “My lease is almost up and I’m shopping around for something to buy.”

“Oh?” I chew on that for a bit. “Where are you thinking?”

“West Village, maybe? That’s the preference.” He hides his face behind the notepad as he adds, “and it has to be near a bookstore.”

 _Bookstore…_ Something about that catches on a bramble of an old memory and then it comes to me all at once: overnight trip, senior year. Peter’s promposal, the Empire State Building, and the first time either of us had ever visited New York. We’d been so convinced that we’d end up together there. 

He’d wanted to live in an apartment with a doorman and a gym. I’d wanted the West Village and a bookstore.

“Can I read what you’re writing?” My voice sounds almost strange to my ears. Peter looks up and when he catches the expression on my face, he stops. And then he hands me the notepad.

  1. _Lunch once a week_
  2. _Dinners thrice_

  3. _Waking up to you on weekends would be more than nice_

  4. _Friday nights out with friends_

  5. _Joint holidays too_

  6. _And if you’ll have me, Covey, someday I will marry you._




I can’t breathe.

“Peter…” 

“This isn’t a proposal.”

“It’s not?” Every signal in my brain feels jammed at once. All the blood’s rushed up my neck, my face, my ears... “I don’t understand!”

“Consider this a pro forma,” Peter explains, his smile lopsided and shy. I still can’t quite draw breath.

“A pro forma proposal?”

“A kinda… pre-proposal proposal. A… declaration of intention. With the specifics left out. For now.”

“Specifics… such as?” My smile is slowly stretching across my face. I can hardly believe this is happening, and yet… I totally can.

“Well…” He laces his fingers in mine and brings my left hand up to his lips, kissing my bare ring finger softly. “You’ll need something for this one, for starters.”

“Oh?” 

“Yeah. And also, I haven’t quite worked out the execution. I figure I need an update on what passes nowadays for devastatingly romantic, Covey-worthy-and-approved locations. And besides — I’ve already used up one classic Manhattan landmark, as we’ve discussed recently.”

“I don’t know…” I laugh huskily. “This feels damn well near perfect already, Kavinsky.”

“Well…” Peter ducks his head and when he looks up at me through his lashes, my heart skips a beat. “I just wanted to put this out there, Covey. For the record.”

“For the record?” I climb into his lap and slip my arms around his neck. It’s one of my favorite positions in bed with him, I’m starting to realize. This way, we’re level. We’re even. We’re closer than close. I can stare straight into his eyes till I see his heart, and kiss him senseless without end.

“For the record, Peter Grant Kavinsky,” I murmur into his waiting lips, all of me thrumming and wanting him, “I accept.”

* * *

“You got time for breakfast?” Gen nods at both of us when we finally emerge, gingerly carrying our travel cases back down the spiral stairs. “Knock it off, Peter…” Gen scowls as Peter makes a show of wincing in pain, but I can tell she doesn’t mean it. “John’s cooking, asshole. Not me.”

John Ambrose turns around on cue and dishes out a tray of sausages from the oven. My stomach rumbles like a Pavlovian response and everyone hears it.

“Marathon sex will do that to ya,” Chris breezily quips from seemingly nowhere and I gape a little as she strolls to the kitchen island and helps herself to a hashbrown. 

“Don’t tell me you guys spent your wedding night here!” I blurt out.

“Hell, no!” she scoffs, taking the hashbrown out of her mouth long enough to give me an oily kiss on the cheek. “We just came for food — and to say goodbye to you two.”

And it’s strange but good. It’s Good-Strange — and familiar, and fun, and _right_ that we’re all gathered like this now. The original treehouse gang, held together by _Jung_ — that tenuous connection between all of us that transcends love and hate and time. No matter what, I know now that I can never be apathetic about any of them — just as I feel confident now that they’ll always feel connected to me. And I’m _so_ grateful I came. I’m indebted to Chris and Trev for the chance to rediscover this part of my life again. 

“Let’s do something at Christmas,” I suggest, my hands clasped tight under the table with sudden nervousness. But all of them are nodding along. 

“We’ll come back,” Trevor agrees easily. “We’ll be up and down to see Chris’s grandma anyway.”

“And we’re still close by,” John Ambrose adds, looking straight at Gen. And she smiles back at him now, the kind of small smile I’m sure I wear without consciously knowing I do when I look at Peter. It’s the kind you can only make when you’re deeply content and in love and gazing at the one person who makes you feel seen and safe. 

“I’ll talk to my dad and see if we can’t have something over his and Trina’s place,” I smile, relieved. Peter squeezes my hand under the table and then kisses my temple quickly.

“We gotta go,” he says quietly and we all stand up. He’d loaded our bags in the car when I was freshening up in the bathroom earlier, and he helps me now into my thin navy blazer as everyone gathers by the front door.

“Bye, you!” Trevor envelopes me in a giant hug and kisses the top of my head. Gen and I have a quick hug, and I give John Ambrose a slightly longer one.

“Take care, John Ambrose.” I smile at him and hope he understands that I wish him all good things. Him _and_ Gen. 

“You and Peter will make it, Lara Jean…” he murmurs back in my ear. “I’ve got a good feeling this time.”

Chris and I hug the longest and it goes without saying that part of it is for her grandma. “Thank you,” I whisper into her ear just before we part and she nods, her eyes a little shiny.

It’s only when I reach for the door that I remember it, and I drop my bag on the floor as I dash back into the kitchen.

“Lara Jean?” Peter calls out, but I’m already dragging out the rectangular Tupperware container and digging through the rice.

“Almost forgot!” I grin at everyone’s bewilderment, and then I find the right button and turn Peter's old phone on.

There’s a long pause as we collectively stare at the blank screen, but when the familiar blue icon comes on, there’s a small ripple of disbelief.

“It actually works?” John Ambrose looks highly amused. “I always thought the rice thing was just some ancient urban legend.”

“I don’t believe it,” marvels Peter, flicking through his apps. “I was pretty sure that thing was gone for good.”

“Maybe,” I shrug, quietly elated that my experiment actually worked. “Or maybe it wasn’t as dead as we thought. Maybe all it really needed was just time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank all of you who have left kudos and comments, some of you coming back repeatedly to cheer this fic along the way. Your warmth, encouragement, enthusiasm for this fic, and love for these characters really blew me away, especially since I am brand, brand new here. It was a real pleasure getting into Lara Jean's head and I've loved unfolding this story over 13 chapters. Thank you for being part of this escapism. :-)
> 
> * * *
> 
> Some of you have asked if I'm planning to write another fic in this fandom and the short answer is YES. The longer answer is that I'm still working out how to approach this fic idea, and I'm also coming into a busy project period right now. But if you're interested in reading this when I'm ready, perhaps the safest way is to [subscribe to my profile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AGirlwith17Words/pseuds/AGirlwith17Words).
> 
> TITLE:  
> Lara Jean Makes Love
> 
> DESCRIPTION:  
> It's coming up to the research part of Lara Jean's Master's program. And with typical wide-eyed naïvety and aplomb, Lara Jean decides to study her favorite thing: ROMANCE. Namely, what its strongest triggers are, and whether you can fake it until you literally make it. 
> 
> But Lara Jean is already stuck with analysis paralysis at the planning stage and time is running out. If only she could try out some of her ideas with three male volunteer guinea pigs. That should simplify matters... shouldn't it?


End file.
